A new survey conducted by the polling firm Rasmussen has found that former superstar Fox News host Tucker Carlson is still far more popular with Americans than his former employer, Fox News.
Specifically, the Rasmussen Reports poll found that Tucker Carlson remains popular among both conservatives and likely Republican 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,” Rasmussen noted in its report on the [oll.
Continuing, it also noted that many people quite dislike Tucker, saying, “Thirty-four percent (34%) view Carlson unfavorably, including 25% with a Very Unfavorable impression.”
Fox news, on the other hand, didn’t do as well with likely voters. While the generally favorable impression result was somewhat close, with Fox News having a 52% favorable rating to Tucker’s 59%. It was in the “very favorably” category that Tucker really blew Fox News out of the water, with Fox News only having 24% view it very favorably compared to Tucker’s 36%.
Additionally, far more people viewed Fox News unfavorably than Tucker unfavorable: 42% viewed Fox News unfavorably, with 28% having a very unfavorable view. That’s compared to 34% and 25%, respectively, for Tucker.
Rasmussen also noted that few thought that Tucker’s exit would help Fox News. According to its report, only 19 percent of voters thought it would positively affect the network. On the other hand, 32 percent believed that his departure would actually lower the quality of the news platform and 42 percent of voters did not think that Carlson’s exit would make any significant difference to Fox.
The dislike many people now have for Fox News after Tucker’s firing can be seen in the network’s recent ratings disaster. In fact, Tucker Carlson’s exit is even dragging down ratings across other shows, including Sean Hannity’s. Revolver reported on Fox’s steep drop in viewership:
On Tuesday night, during the 8:00 pm hour Fox News only attracted 1.7 million viewers, down significantly from the numbers Tucker brought in. And take a look at Hannity’s ratings. He’s down approximately a million eyeballs.
Tucker was a huge “lead-in” boost for Sean, and without those numbers, Sean could be big in trouble—Laura Ingraham, too. Keep in mind, last Tuesday when Tucker was on air at 8:00 pm, Fox news registered these numbers: 481,000/3,223,000.
Last night at 8:00 pm, without Tucker Carlson, these were the numbers: 159,333 | 1,777,000.
Fox News is down a whopping two-thirds in the key demographic.
So, people were tuning out of Fox News after it fired Tucker. Tucker, by contrast, brought in a massive number of views when he broke his silence on his departure from Fox News earlier last week. Within one hour, the video gained more views than his previous time slot with Fox News, receiving 1.8 million views, more than the 1.7 million his old 8:00 p.m. time slot at Fox News Channel gained on Tuesday night.
It now has garnered an incredible 79.2 million views, far outpacing his former network, which is hardly surprising given Fox New’s bland programing and the strong feelings Tucker elicits from his supporters and detractors. Watch his video here:
Good evening pic.twitter.com/SPrsYKWKCE
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2023
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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