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Fox News is still dealing with the fallout after parting ways with top-rated host Tucker Carlson, but one host at the network just got a big win.
Newly released cable news data showed that “The Five” topped the cable news ratings charts with 2.66 million total viewers.
“Fox’s Jesse Watters had the second-highest-rated show with 2.18 million total viewers. No other cable news show crossed the 2 million viewer mark on Thursday. The Five also led in the key 25-54 age demographic with 338,000 viewers, followed by Gutfeld!’s 252,000 demo viewers. Watters and Greg Gutfeld are co-hosts on The Five,” Mediaite reported.
“CNN’s ratings came back down after Wednesday’s town hall with Donald Trump boosted the network into first place at 8 p.m. Fox News led the day overall, MSNBC was in second and CNN landed in third in all total day and primetime averages,” the outlet added.
Outside of “The Five” and host Greg Gutgeld’s late-night show, Fox News has not had much to celebrate lately as the network has suffered a brutal decline in viewership since Carlson’s departure.
“In the first week after Carlson’s ouster on April 24, the channel’s primetime viewership fell 29.6 percent to 1.449 million viewers, coming in third among cable networks, according to figures from Nielsen,” Yahoo News reported. “Viewership for the network’s 8 p.m. time slot was down 47 percent overall for that week, according to an analysis from former Fox News host Megyn Kelly. The analysis averaged the viewership from the first week of his absence and compared it with the last week he was on the air. Among the key demographic of 25-54-year-olds, ratings were down a whopping 59 percent.”
Last week, a new survey found that Carlson remains more popular with Americans than his former employer.
The poll by Rasmussen Reports found that Carlson remains popular among conservative and Republican likely voters. “Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Likely U.S. voters have a favorable impression of Carlson, including 36% who have a Very Favorable opinion of him,” the polling firm noted.
“Thirty-four percent (34%) view Carlson unfavorably, including 25% with a Very Unfavorable impression,” the firm added in a release.
Meanwhile, Fox News now has a lower approval from likely voters, with only 52% of voters viewing the network favorably and 24% very favorably, decidedly lower than Carlson’s numbers. Among likely voters, 42% viewed Fox News unfavorably, with 28% having a very unfavorable view.
When it comes to the impact of Carlson’s firing from the network, only 19 percent of voters thought it would have a positive effect on the network. In contrast, 32 percent believed that his departure would actually lower the quality of the news platform. On the other hand, 42 percent of voters did not think that Carlson’s exit would make any significant difference to Fox.
Carlson stunned his fans — and likely put more fear into his employer — after he posted another video to Twitter this week announcing a new “show” on the platform.
Earlier this month, Carlson took to Twitter in his first public statement after being taken off the air to drop truth bombs about corruption within the cable news industry in general, as well as covert and overt acts of self-imposed censorship and disinformation.
That has to be shocking to Fox News executives who, according to previous reports, are looking to keep Carlson under his current contract, which does not expire until January 2025, to avoid a permanent and massive loss of viewers.
In his first video to his supporters last week, he encouraged them to “keep fighting” and added that they would hear from him soon.
Carlson said he realized after stepping “outside the noise for a few days” how “unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” arguing that they were “completely irrelevant” and “mean nothing.”
In his second video, Carlson announced he was moving to Twitter to post a show there in the coming weeks.
“There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world is Twitter,” Carlson said in his short monologue – in which he took a shot at Fox, saying, “If you bump up against the limits [in the news business] you will be fired for it.”
