Fox Corporation’s stock lost $1 billion in market capitalization just minutes after news broke that Tucker Carlson departed Fox News.
Fox Corporation, which owns Fox News as well as entertainment television and sports holdings, quickly plunged more than 5% after Fox News announced that Carlson and the media organization had “parted ways.” The announcement came as a surprise and appeared to catch shareholders off guard.
The massive evaporation of value speaks to just how much traffic the 53-year-old host of Tucker Carlson Tonight drove for the network.
Fox News recently announced that in the first quarter of 2023, the show was the “highest-rated program in cable news in the younger 25-54 demo, averaging 3.2 million viewers, 443,000 in the demo and 299,000 in the 18-49 category.”
Carlson was perhaps Fox News’s single most-recognized anchor. His show was the network’s second-most popular program last year, with only The Five attracting more viewership.
Fox News recently settled a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems for more than $787 million over claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Last week, another popular figure at Fox, Dan Bongino, announced he and Fox failed to come to an agreement for a contract extension.
The reason why Carlson and Fox parted ways is still unclear, and he has not released a statement.
Fox thinks Jesse is going to fill in for Tucker? What a joke, Jesse is Oreilly’s water boy, always will be. Watters has no gravitas, does no original reporting and is just a mouthpiece like Lemon was.