Posted on 05/26/2023 11:32:08 AM PDT by TBP
Some big names at Fox News may be gone in the near future as well, according to a report published on Thursday.
Variety reported that a handful of current Fox News talent are contemplating throwing in with whatever project former top-rated host Tucker Carlson may be working on, which could include programming that would be broadcast on Twitter.
The report comes after Carlson strongly hinted earlier this month in a video posted to the platform that he was preparing to air a program live on Twitter.
“Carlson’s Twitter move could have additional reverberations with talent at the network. A handful of Fox anchors have reached out to Carlson directly or had their surrogates contact him to say they are eager to join whatever venture he starts on Twitter when their contracts are up, according to sources,” Variety reported.
Carlson currently remains under contract with Fox News at a reported $20 million a year, so he isn’t free to sign on with another network. Reports said his contract doesn’t expire until after the 2024 election, in January 2025.
Variety also reported that Carlson was taken off the air as a condition of Fox’s recent defamation settlement:
On April 26, Carlson spoke by phone with one of Fox Corp.’s eight board members, who told the host that his recent benching was a condition of Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the conversation.
The unnamed board member told Carlson that the condition does not appear in any of the settlement’s documents, and instead was a verbal agreement. If Fox didn’t comply, the settlement was off, Carlson was told. Dominion had plenty of leverage given that the $787.5 million deal to settle Dominion’s defamation suit against the network wouldn’t officially close until late May.
The outlet went on to report that while Dominion’s defamation claims rested mostly on accusations aired post-2020 election on programs hosted by Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and Maria Bartiromo, the company wanted to hurt Fox and, as such, chose to press the network into cutting ties with its most popular talent: Carlson.
“That condition was intended to hurt Fox, and Tucker is just collateral damage,” a source familiar with the matter told Variety. “Dominion wanted to punish Fox, and it’s working.”
Both Fox and Dominion have denied that Carlson’s dismissal was part of the settlement agreement.
According to sources close to him, Carlson is reportedly considering the possibility of creating his own direct-to-consumer media platform, where his large fan base could pay to watch him. The model was previously used by Carlson’s predecessor on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, who is currently hosting a show during Carlson’s old timeslot for The First TV, which recently became available on DirecTV.
Axios — and others — reported that Carlson has already been contacted by multiple outlets, including the Rumble streaming platform, Newsmax TV, and Valuetainment, and have offered to pay him more per year than Fox is shelling out.
In a video posted to Twitter this month, Carlson said, “There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world is Twitter. If you bump up against the limits [in the news business] you will be fired for it.”
“The rule of what you can’t say defines everything,” he said, adding, “You can’t have a free society if people aren’t allowed to say what they think is true… There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one… is Twitter, where we are now.”
“Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” Carlson added. “We’ll be bringing some other things too, which we’ll tell you about. But for now, we’re just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have, without it, you have no others. See you soon.”
I wonder if Jesse Watters is considering leaving. I have found lots of talent on Newsmax since Tucker left Fox.
As far at the DC permanent establishment and US Left are concerned - this is an absolute resounding success.
They have succeeded in finally taking down their enemy of the last 25 years - the one remaining conservative citadel of TV/Cable news.
Of course, its created growing guerrilla movement in the countryside, which will grow and harass them.
Twitter’s infrastructure (servers and network) are CURRENTLY nowhere near capable of hosting a live video program with 1 million plus viewers.
Twitter was built for short messages scattered around across millions of users.
I’m sure Elon is buying boatloads of hardware and engineers and bandwidth, but it takes MONTHS of price-is-no-object building to get where they want to be.
The Tucker Network has been born!
They don’t name a single one.
I have nothing against Jesse, but he strikes me as guy who’s over-achieving just having the job that he has. It’d be foolhardy for him to jump ship. Ditto Hannity.
Whom could I imagine leaving Fox and signing on with a Tucker Carlson-led alternative? Gutfeld, maybe. Like Tucker, Gutfeld strikes me as far less of a “company man” than a Hannity or a Watters.
Carlson has FU money. Do those others?
Destroy faux news, just like AB, gillette, burger king, target, ford, netflix, amazon and so many others.
States need to boycott Dominion.
The fish rots from the head when the libtard kiddies take over.
Fox should never have settled that lawsuit.
Elon Musk, for what it’s worth, put out an offer than any content creators who join and publish on Twitter gets to keep 100% of the revenue for the first year (minus any fees that Apple or Google take for using their devices). I am sure that kind of deal is “negotiable” for big time hosts like Tucker who might get to reap the lions share of ad revenues for years to come. He can operate freely, with just the equipment and staff he needs to do his show(s).
Would be cool if he kept doing his long form interviews and documentaries. Though I never subscribed to the Fox stream service I enjoyed many of the short segments he did put on the regular cable.
Stinchfield cane to Americas Voice from Newsmax..and has his show on AV.. he said be came to AV where he could speak his opinion..
Cannot on Newsmax?
Fox settled out of court with Dominion for more money than Dominion is worth.
Dominion was already dead. Over. History.
They killed themselves.
Hannity loves being the controlled opposition. Hes right at home with the new fox. Probably considered Tucker as a rival.
Agree, and I don’t have to have a cable subscription (which pays Fox, CNN etc a carriage fee for every subscriber) - all you need is a broadband internet connection. Roku and similar smart TVs make streams work exactly like “channels” - you’d never know the difference, push a button and your content just appears.
This is the future and they all know it. Xfinity (Comcast) got into content creation because they know the handwriting is on the wall for the wired or satellite distribution model.
And guess what? Starlink’s download speeds vary a bit but even the slowest ones are plenty for viewing 4K video content. Can’t be blocked or censored, unlimited data, and owned by the worlds biggest free speech advocate.
Again…no names.
I thought Fox was not popular around here?
Fox has started to pimp for DeSantis!
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