Within the two months since Tucker Carlson introduced his Twitter present, the previous Fox Information host is seemingly dropping his relevance. Carlson, whose top-rated cable present was abruptly canceled by Fox Information in April, first teased his transfer to Twitter with a Could announcement that drew a whopping 137 million views as of Monday, in accordance with the platform’s publicly out there information. The primary episode of Tucker on Twitter, launched early final month, was met with related fanfare, notching 120 million views.
However in latest weeks, Carlson hasn’t come close to repeating these highs—a development that’s already caught some media consideration. Since mid-June, when the fourth episode of Tucker on Twitter aired, it hasn’t surpassed 33 million views. His eighth and newest episode—launched on June 30—has managed solely 9.1 million views as of publication. It’s additionally value noting that these numbers may be simply misconstrued: The view depend connected to all tweets—whether or not video, photograph, or textual content—refers back to the variety of occasions a tweet was seen by anybody who got here throughout it. It doesn’t monitor what number of customers truly watched a video; somewhat, it lumps collectively those that shortly scrolled previous together with those that hit the play button.
Certainly, an NBC Information report deciphering the true variety of Tucker on Twitter viewers discovered that his first episode, which had a public view depend of 90 million on the time of the report, truly netted 26 million video views as of June 16. The next two installments obtained 13.2 million and 18.7 million video views, per information given to NBC Information by an analytics agency. (Apparently, two weeks earlier than the June 6 launch of Tucker on Twitter, which marked the primary time a high-profile character has opted to air a present completely on Twitter, some Twitter customers observed that the positioning had eliminated its video view counter.)
All of this to say, Carlson’s social media journey is probably not going in addition to he’d hoped when he hailed it because the final huge free speech platform left on the earth. However Carlson additionally doesn’t appear wedded to Twitter, even supposing Elon Musk, who bought the platform final October, has remodeled it right into a conservative haven. “I’m not working for Elon Musk. He hasn’t provided to rent me and if he did I wouldn’t settle for. What he’s completed is obtainable me what he’s provided each different person of Twitter, which is an opportunity to broadcast your views with no gatekeeper,” Carlson mentioned in a latest look on comic Russell Model’s podcast. “What [Twitter] gives within the brief time period, at the least for me, is an viewers but in addition a greater cause to put in writing.”
In the identical interview, Carlson advised Model that he nonetheless doesn’t know why Fox Information terminated his present. And whereas the community, the place Carlson stays below contract by December 2024, has actively sought to stamp out Tucker on Twitter, Carlson insisted that he harbors no sick will towards the corporate. “I used to be shocked, however I wasn’t actually shocked, and I wasn’t mad. It’s not my firm,” he mentioned, including later, “I don’t know why I used to be fired—I actually don’t. I’m not offended about it. You’ll be able to consider me or not, however I believe you may really feel that I’m not. And you already know, I want Fox effectively.”
When Carlson first misplaced his Fox Information present, which for years had been among the many community’s highest-rated applications, many questioned whether or not Carlson might dangle on to relevance with out Fox’s backing. It’s doubtless nonetheless too early to inform, however Twitter, at the least proper now, does actually appear to be solely a short-term answer for the conservative character. Positive, Carlson can get away with saying issues that may get him in bother on YouTube, Instagram, or Fb, however Twitter has far fewer lively customers than these opponents. It additionally suffers from an infamously poor video participant and has but to supply creators with a method to monetize their movies, regardless of an assurance from Musk that Twitter will introduce revenue-sharing someday sooner or later.
For a path ahead that doesn’t contain social media, Carlson may have a look at the person who final occupied his Fox Information time slot: Invoice O’Reilly, who left the community in 2017 following 5 sexual misconduct settlements. As soon as the undisputed king of cable information, O’Reilly has largely disappeared from political relevance since leaving Fox and now hosts a streaming present for a small conservative community.
As for Fox Information, it’s nonetheless contending with doable authorized bother derived from Carlson’s programming. A lawyer representing Ray Epps, a person who says he has been falsely portrayed by Carlson and others as an undercover federal asset who helped foment the Capitol riot, hinted at that risk in a press release to The New York Instances this week. “We knowledgeable Fox in March that if they didn’t concern a proper on-air apology that we’d pursue all out there avenues to guard the Eppses’ rights,” mentioned Michael Teter, Epps’s lawyer. “That is still our intent.” Fox Information and Carlson didn’t reply to requests for remark.
