Tucker Carlson, Twitter And Fox News Have Been Losing Audiences

Since Tucker Carlson was suddenly fired from Fox
FOXA
News in April and began posting videos on Twitter on June 6, his video audience has been in a freefall. Carlson’s inaugural video on Twitter, dubbed Tucker on Twitter, had generated 26 million video views. (Twitter counts a video view as any person that watches a video for two or more seconds with half the screen viewable.) In the second episode, two days later, Carlson’s video views dropped to 13.9 million. While the third episode, which coincided with Trump’s indictment from the Justice Department, saw an increase to 18.7 million views, the general trend has been downward. For Carlson’s more recent eighth episode, on June 30, the viewing was only 3.8 million, its lowest to date and a 86% decline since June 6.

Similarly, through the weeks, the views to Carlson’s accounts have also dropped precipitously. At first, Carlson’s Twitter post on May 9, announcing his new “program”, generated 134.1 million views on the microblogging site. The day his first video episode was streamed, Carlson’s Twitter post had 120 million views. The Twitter post for Carlson’s eighth episode had a mere eight million views. The view counts are based on Carlson’s video, photo or text posts.

Using a far different audience measurement methodology than Twitter’s, while at Fox News Tucker Carlson Tonight typically averaged over three million viewers each weeknight, making it among the highest rated programs on cable television. Clearly television has more staying power than Twitter.

Whether Carlson’s post and videos will continue on Twitter is another question. Carlson’s contract with Fox News, which pays him a reported $20 million annually comes with a non-compete clause. On June 13 lawyers for Fox News sent Carlson a cease-and-desist letter informing him to stop posting videos on Twitter. At that time Carlson’s attorneys said, “Tucker will not be silenced by anyone. He is a singularly important voice on matters of public interest in our country and will remain so.” Carlson’s contract with Fox News expires on December 31, 2024.

Musk has said Carlson is not being paid by Twitter nor does he have a contract with the company. Carlson has said, “I’m not working for Elon Musk, he hasn’t offered to hire me and if he did, I wouldn’t accept, what he’s done is offered me what he’s offered every other user of Twitter which is a chance to broadcast your views without a gatekeeper.”

Carlson was let go days after Fox News reached a $787 million settlement from a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. In addition, in late June, Fox News agreed to pay $12 million to former producer Abby Grossberg. Grossberg had accused the network of having a hostile and discriminatory workplace and also said Fox News wanted her to provide false testimony in the Dominion deposition. Carlson among others were named in Grossberg’s complaint.

Fox News is still facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit with Smartmatic, another voting machine company. Also, Fox News could be facing a potential lawsuit involving Tucker Carlson. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported a lawyer, representing Ray Epps, says Carlson had falsely portrayed him as a secret government agent who had directed the events of January 6. Epps has demanded an on-air apology.

Carlson joining Twitter had come at a time when the social media website continues to struggle. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter last October, advertisers and users have been in decline. The New York Times
NYT
reported over a five-week span in early second quarter Twitter’s ad revenue was $88 million, a year-over-year decline of 59%. Insider Intelligence projects, year-over-year, Twitter’s global ad revenue will drop by 29% in 2023.

A survey from Pew Research, released in May, found while a majority of highly active Twitter users continue to use the service after Musk’s takeover, many are not posting as often. Pew also reported about 60% of U.S. adults who used Twitter in the past year have taken a hiatus from the platform recently. In addition, one-fourth of those users said they are not likely to return to Twitter in the next 12 months.

Another threat has been the emergence of Threads, a rival micro blogging site from Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram. A few days after its launch, Threads had surpassed 100 million users outpacing even the launch of ChatGPT. If Threads maintains this record setting pace, they will surpass Twitter users relatively quickly.

CNN notes that Cloudflare
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, which measures popularity among other websites, reported in January Twitter had ranked 32^nd, by early July, Twitter had fallen to 40^th. Cloudflare measures website popularity as the size of a population of users that look up a domain per unit of time. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince noted, “Twitter traffic tanking.” Similarweb, another web analytics company, reports a similar fall-off in Twitter usage since the emergence of Threads, with percent double-digit declines when compared to one year ago.

Post Tucker Carlson, Fox News is facing their own challenges beyond lawsuits. This week Wells Fargo
WFC
analyst Steven Cahall had downgraded the ratings of Fox Corp. from “equal weight” to “down weight”. In a note, Cahall said, most of the earnings from Fox come from Fox News, which is facing news risks, cord-cutting risks and earnings risks.

The ratings of Fox News continue to decline. In June the network shed 31% of their primetime audience compared to one year ago. Nonetheless, they continue to be the top-rated cable news network. On July 17, Fox News will launch its new primetime programming lineup with Jesse Watters moving into Carlson’s 8 p.m. (ET) time period.