Fox ratings tumble in Tucker Carlson slot after his firing
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/f...224537060.html
DAVID BAUDER
Thu, April 27, 2023 at 5:45 PM CDT
NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Fox News viewers are reacting to 
Tucker Carlson's firing by abandoning the network in his old time slot — at least temporarily.
Fox  drew 1.33 million viewers for substitute host Brian Kilmeade in the 8  p.m. Eastern hour on Wednesday night, putting the network second to  MSNBC's Chris Hayes in a competition Carlson used to dominate, the  Nielsen company said.
That's down 56% from the 3.05 million viewers Carlson reached last  Wednesday, Nielsen said. For all of 2022, Carlson averaged 3.03 million  viewers, second only to Fox's “The Five” as the most popular program on  cable television.
Carlson offered his own alternative to Kilmeade  on Wednesday, posting a two-minute monologue on Twitter at 8 p.m. By  Thursday afternoon, 
that video had been viewed 62.7 million times,  according to Twitter.
76 million by today 
 Kilmeade had 1.7 million viewers on Tuesday  and 2.59 million on Monday, when he told people who hadn't already heard  the news that Carlson would no longer be there.
 

 Tucker Carlson
 Carlson  had 2.65 million viewers on Friday for what he didn't know at the time  would be his last show on Fox. He was fired on Monday with no  explanation given publicly, although there are no shortage of theories —  including a 
former employee's lawsuit that cited a toxic work atmosphere at his show, 
offensive statements by Carlson that came out as part of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox and his embrace of political 
conspiracy theories about the 
Jan. 6 insurrection.
The ratings slump echoes 
what happened at Fox  following the 2020 election, when many viewers angered by the network's  crucial election night declaration that Joe Biden had won Arizona  followed then-President Donald Trump's advice to seek alternatives. That  caused tremendous angst behind the scenes at Fox, which was illustrated  in documents released as part of the Dominion case.
Asked for  comment, Fox responded with a statement noting that Fox has been cable  news' most-watched network for 21 years with its team “trusted more by  viewers than any other news source.”
In the wake of Carlson's  firing, viewing at the conservative network Newsmax has shot up for Eric  Bolling, who hosts a show in the same 8 p.m. Eastern slot.
For  example, Bolling had 510,000 viewers Wednesday night, compared to  168,000 on Wednesday a week ago, Nielsen said. On Tuesday, Bolling had  562,000 viewers, up from 122,000 the same day a week earlier.
The  challenge for Newsmax will be making it last. Fox surged again following  Biden's inauguration as president, and Newsmax couldn't keep up the  momentum.