What to Know About Tucker Carlson’s Rise

After a Fox producer, Dan Gallo, expressed concerns to human resources executives about recordings of Mr. Carlson defending statutory rape and calling Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys,” and on-air comments by Jeanine Pirro questioning a Muslim congresswoman’s loyalty to the Constitution, Mr. Carlson learned about his complaints and confronted him face to face in Los Angeles, demanding that Mr. Gallo “do the honorable thing” and call him if he had a disagreement. Mr. Gallo offered to talk then and there, but Mr. Carlson wasn’t interested. “I’m busy,” the host said, and walked off.

Days after a mass shooting in El Paso by a white man protesting what he called the “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” Mr. Carlson declared that white supremacy was largely a “hoax.” A young Fox reporter, Cristina Corbin, tweeted, without mentioning Mr. Carlson: “White supremacy is real, as evidenced by fact. Claims that it is a ‘hoax’ do not represent my views.” The host called Ms. Corbin and yelled at her to “shut your mouth,” according to a former Fox executive briefed on the episode. When asked about the incident by Fox management, Mr. Carlson denied making the call.

His playbook sent sponsors fleeing, yet nearly doubled ad dollars

Here is the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” playbook: Go straight for the third rail, be it race, immigration or another hot-button issue; harvest the inevitable backlash; return the next evening to skewer critics for how they responded. Then, do it all again. This feedback loop drove up ratings and boosted loyalty to Fox and Mr. Carlson.

What it did not do was endear Mr. Carlson to advertisers. As blue-chip sponsors fled, Fox filled the space with in-house promos — using Mr. Carlson’s popularity to push other Fox shows — and direct-to-consumer brands like MyPillow, whose chief executive is a major promoter of Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lie.

Last May, after promoting the white supremacist “replacement” theory, Mr. Carlson had half as many advertisers as in December 2018. But he brought in almost twice as much money.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/business/media/tucker-carlson-fox-news-takeaways.html