Ratings: Tucker on Top

Despite an ongoing feud with Media Matters that has scared some sponsors, Tucker Carlson’s ratings are on top. Cockburn of Spectator USA writes:

There have been endless, gleeful reports about Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show losing nervous corporate advertisers. Far less attention has been paid to the fact that, for the last few days, his news show’s ratings have been creeping up.

A week is a long time in politics, and an eternity on rolling news. On Sunday night, things looked bad for Tucker. He was trending nationally on Twitter after Media Matters surfaced old radio interviews in which he made some rather unsavory remarks. Influential public figures like Alyssa Milano from Charmed were campaigning for his ouster. It seemed like the presenter had a real risk of being #canceled by the outrage brigades.

But a lot can happen in five days. In a rather delicious irony, the head of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, came under scrutiny for his own controversial statements.

And Tucker? He refused to cave to social media pressure, delayed his vacation by a week and took to his usual time slot with his trademark tenacity and humor. The viewers rewarded him: his show has seen an uptick in ratings this week.

On Monday, Tucker Carlson Tonight had 2.895m viewers, according to Showbuzz Daily. Usually Carlson is behind Sean Hannity in this respect. Tuesday saw a further increase: he secured the #1 slot with 3.086m. Hannity returned to the top of the podium on Wednesday, but Tucker Carlson Tonight continued to grow to an audience of 3.108m. And on Thursday it was another Hannity-Tucker 1-2, with Tucker Carlson Tonight watched by 3.143m. So far in 2019, Carlson had been averaging 2.9m viewers.

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