Tucker Carlson last night released the 100th episode of his show on X, his comeback project following an unceremonious departure from Fox News. The milestone episode, featuring conservative commentator Dan Ball, addressed long-standing areas of interest for Carlson, such as congressional efforts to censor Right-of-centre voices. Indeed, it felt like a throwback to his cable days — more a lament of government overreach and the erosion of free speech than his continuing turn towards eccentric content about UFOs and the legal travails of alt-Right internet personalities.
Carlson’s shift towards fringe content was arguably necessary to maintain viewer interest outside of Fox’s huge mainstream platform. By featuring controversial figures such as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, manosphere advocate Andrew Tate, and “Gay Obama” truther Larry Sinclair, Carlson has banked on the sensationalism and divisiveness these guests bring to sustain high engagement levels.
When I spoke to people close to Carlson’s current and previous shows, there was a consensus that these wackier episodes have negatively impacted the credibility and broader appeal of his platform, while also overshadowing more intimate and interesting conversations he has conducted with the likes of iconoclastic golfer John Daly, disgraced former CNN journalist Chris Cuomo, UFC boss Dana White, and trucking-industry writer Gord Magill.
To that end, Carlson’s well-publicised conversation with Vladimir Putin, which was criticised even by the Russian President himself for its lack of challenging questions, highlights the diminishing journalistic rigour of his highest-profile interviews. This shift towards embracing edgier guests and subject matter indicates a deeper commitment to niche content, which risks isolating a more varied audience.
Declining viewership statistics substantiate that view. Initially, Carlson’s X episodes consistently garnered over 100 million impressions, reaching their zenith around the middle of last year. However, a precipitous drop is evident from mid-December, with episodes struggling to surpass the 50-million-view mark and most attracting 10-30 million views. Additionally, this metric, which counts views regardless of viewing duration and even includes autoplays occurring in newsfeeds, does not tell us how long or in what ways most viewers actually engaged with these episodes.
Genuine growth would come from working to broaden that declining base, not merely shoring it up. According to insiders, while the absence of a traditional corporate structure has granted Carlson increased autonomy, it has also eliminated a crucial layer of editorial oversight. These sources have noted a shift towards targeting a less discerning audience, emphasising sensationalism over substantive discourse in order to keep the attention of more credulous viewers — one insider notes a current “audience minus about 10-15 IQ points from the prime-time show” — interested in space aliens and Obama’s alleged gay trysts.
Insiders tell me that previously, at Fox News, Carlson’s show was carefully crafted as appointment viewing. His prime-time slot at 8pm was built around a tightly scripted monologue, the result of hours of preparation by his production team. This format ensured that each episode was a polished delivery of Carlson’s viewpoints, designed to capture and retain a large national audience. The goal was to take innovative Right-wing views from Twitter and present them in a format accessible to a broader, not necessarily online-savvy audience. This strategy successfully mainstreamed what were often fringe opinions, making them palatable to a larger viewership.
Source : https://unherd.com/newsroom/the-strange-trajectory-of-tucker-carlsons-first-100-shows