Tucker Carlson’s Ad Sales Are Tanking Thanks to His Appalling Racism
The pushback against Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s blatant
on-air racism is continuing to affect the company’s bottom line as companies
pull more ads from Carlson’s show.
Carlson took
a little vacation this week after launching into a wildly
deceptive rant on Tuesday in which he claimed that the dangers of white
supremacy in the United States are a “hoax.” Of course, what else would he say,
given that the “manifesto” of a white supremacist terrorist who murdered
at least 22 people last weekend in El Paso, TX, used
the same rhetoric about immigrant “invasions” as Carlson so often uses on
his show.
Or that his words were praised
by former Ku Klux Klan “grand wizard” David Duke:
According to Media Matters for America’s Jordan Uhl, Carlson’s
nightly ad load has seen
a “seismic shift” since Tuesday, when the Fox News host claimed that white
supremacy is “not a real problem in America,” but rather “a conspiracy theory
used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.”
“The number of paid ads has
drastically plummeted in the last week,” Uhl wrote.
Carlson’s show has been guest-hosted the last couple of nights
by other Fox
News regulars, including Brian Kilmeade, Mark Steyn, and Tammy Bruce.
Meanwhile, companies like SteinMart, HelloFresh,
and Nestlé,
among others, announced they will no longer advertise on the show.
Seafood restaurant chain Long John Silver’s announced on
Thursday that it would not advertise on any
Fox News show, including Carlson’s. As Media Matters for America President
Angelo Carusone noted, in 2018, Long John Silver’s had placed ads on Fox News
“almost every day.”
A graphic published by Media Matters for America shows that the
number of paid ads aired during Carlson’s show dropped from 21 last Monday to
11 on Friday. Meanwhile, the number of public service announcements aired in
their place jumped from zero on Monday to six on Friday. During the same
period, Fox News house ads increased from four to 10, the media watchdog group
found.
By comparison, Carlson’s show had about 36
paid ads per night at the same time last year, according to HuffPost.
Carlson’s first real problem with advertisers began
in December of last year, when he said that immigrants make the country
“dirtier and poorer.” After that show, at least 14 advertisers either paused or
suspended their relationship with Tucker
Carlson Tonight, as Splinter noted at the time.
More advertisers bailed last March, when Media Matters for
America unearthed several
radio recordings from 2006 to 2011 in which Carlson is heard making
revolting remarks about statutory rape and other topics. In those recordings,
Carlson also referred to Iraqis as “semiliterate
primitive monkeys.” At least 26 major sponsors had dropped their
advertising on the show by that point.
Now, that number is about
50 companies.
Carlson is scheduled to return from vacation on Aug. 19.