Is there life after Fox? The post-Fox careers of 7 alumni, ranked

Ten years ago, devoted viewers of Fox News wouldn’t see this coming: the day when Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson sat down together to talk about their firings. But there they were, on Carlson’s new show on X, bantering about their former employer in a 48-minute conversation that, as of this writing, has 22 million views.

Those numbers, of course, don’t reflect who watched the entire video versus those who clicked on it long enough for the metrics to kick in. But they have been held up as evidence that Carlson’s star power has not diminished since leaving Fox, where he was averaging nearly 3.5 million viewers the last month “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was on the air.

This matters, because every time a high-profile personality leaves the network, whether voluntarily or not, there’s a conversation about whether the star needed Fox, or whether Fox needed them.

The jury is still out on this question for Carlson, who is forming his own media company, less so for other former Fox personalities like Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck.

In his conversation with Carlson in September, O’Reilly said his nearly five decades in media led him to believe that every TV personality is expendable, regardless of their ratings. This seems to be the philosophy at Fox, which took a ratings hit after taking Carlson off the air, but has since recovered some of the losses. (In October, according to Nielsen Media Research, Fox was the most-watched cable network overall, but trailed ESPN in primetime.)

While Fox does have personalities who have been with the company from the start, Steve Doocy and Sean Hannity among them, it has been no respecter of its hosts’ ratings and popularity (although Dana Perino’s beloved dogs might provide her some job security). Carlson’s abrupt departure in April was especially shocking, given that he was the network’s top-rated host, like O’Reilly at the time of his dismissal six years earlier.

At the same time, the principals don’t always take the partings as personally as the viewers do. According to Michael Wolff, writing in his new book, “The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty,” Rupert Murdoch called Carlson days after he was let go and said, “I just hope you know I’d like to stay friends. I hope we can.” And O’Reilly described the particulars of his breakup with the network as a polite business transaction.

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Without seeing the bank statements of Fox ex-pats, or knowing how well they sleep at night, it’s difficult to say with certainty whether leaving the network was the best thing for their career, or the worst. But we can still speculate. What follows is an entirely unscientific ranking of the post-Fox careers of seven personalities, from the most successful to least. The rankings are based on social media followings, professional activities and the degree to which people are paying attention to them.

Actual results may vary.

 1. Megyn Kelly

While Megyn Kelly’s company, Devil May Care Media, is relatively new and her social media following (2.9 million on Twitter, 1.5 million on YouTube) is dwarfed by Carlson’s, she seems to have found her perfect job in a two-hour SiriusXM show (airing live from 10 a.m. to noon MST) that presumably leaves her time for parenting and occasional cooking disasters. O’Reilly famously told her that primetime cable news is a “snakepit,” and she was happy to escape it when she left Fox for NBC in 2017, saying it was a better fit for her family. She recently said she will not go back to TV, adding, “I’m much better off at being my own boss and running my own show.”

Kelly considers herself a journalist and she is able to use her considerable interviewing skills on her podcast, where she welcomes a wide range of newsmakers, and also spends time delving into fitness and health. While she has to endure frequent “live reads” — the testimonial advertising increasingly demanded of radio hosts — her brand has not been diminished, and she even seems to have made up with her one-time nemesis, Donald Trump, who was a guest in September.

2. Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck’s radio show went national in 2002; his talk show on Fox ran from 2009 to 2011. The parting did not seem amicable; then Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes told The Associated Press, “Half the headlines say he’s been canceled. The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.”

Regardless, Beck didn’t need Fox before he took the job, and he didn’t need it afterwards, having built a loyal audience through syndication. According to Premiere Networks, his show is heard on 300 radio stations, and he’s also on SiriusXM and YouTube, so it’s almost impossible to calculate his reach. He is, according to Talkers magazine, the 13th most important talk show host out of its annual “Heavy Hundred.”

The media company Beck co-founded with fellow talk-show host Mark Levin recently announced that it’s switching from ads to subscriptions and expanding its news operation. He also writes books and, in a clear sign that he still has time for meaningful pursuits outside of work and family, Beck somehow finds time to make art.

3. Tucker Carlson

Yes, we previously said that it’s too early to judge how Tucker Carlson will fare post-Fox. Still, he has the biggest social media following of any of the network’s ex-pats (10.5 million on X), and according to the Michael Wolff book on Fox, Elon Musk called him four hours after his firing was made public. Plus, Donald Trump chose to hang out with him the night of the first GOP presidential debate. With friends like these, who needs Fox?

That said, without the constraints of Fox and its advertisers, Carlson has become even edgier, welcoming guests such as Russell Brand, the British comedian accused of rape and assault. It’s only been a little more than six months that he’s been steering this ship on his own, so it remains to be seen how much he can push the envelope without diminishing his fan base.

While contractual issues with Fox have likely slowed Carlson’s post-Fox ventures, Axios has reported that Carlson has raised $15 million for his new media company, which was registered in Nevada with the name Last Country Inc.

4. Bill O’Reilly

O’Reilly was fired from Fox in 2017 after The New York Times reported on allegations of sexual harassment against him, although he told Carlson he prefers the word “furloughed.” According to an Associated Press report at the time, O’Reilly was the network’s “biggest star” and on the day he was let go, he had met with the pope in Rome.

Fox moved Carlson into O’Reilly’s time slot.

Although at the time, O’Reilly said he was “sad” about his termination, he told Carlson on X that he didn’t care about being let go after 20 years at the network. “It was time for a change. When I started cable news, it was nothing, but I knew it was gonna be huge. And then I said, you know what’s going to be the next huge? Alternative, independent media. And I just scampered on over to it.”

A week later, O’Reilly said, he converted his website to a news operation, “No Spin News,” which he calls “the most successful independent news agency in the world,” a claim that we could not independently confirm. He still has a syndicated radio show and posts columns and videos daily. And his departure from Fox did not affect his publishing career, which includes 13 books in his “killing” series, the latest of which, “Killing the Witches,” co-written with Martin Dugard, is currently on The New York Times bestseller list.

5. Gretchen Carlson

Gretchen Carlson became one of the most famous faces of the #MeToo movement after she sued Roger Ailes for sexual harassment in 2016. She received an apology and a $20 million settlement and has since become even more of a role model for young women than she was as a news anchor.

In 2019, with Julie Roginsky, she co-founded a nonprofit called Lift Our Voices, dedicated to creating a safer workplace environment. She speaks and writes regularly about sexual harassment, although she recently told a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune, “I had to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) upon my resolution with Fox, so ironically, I don’t own my own truth. So I may never own my own truth, but I’m going to make sure that other people do.”

She added, “This will be my legacy. This is far more important than any interview I’ve ever done with any presidential candidate or sitting president.”

6. Chris Wallace

One of the most respected journalists at Fox, Chris Wallace announced in December 2021 that he was leaving “Fox News Sunday” because the network was “unsustainable.” He said that he became increasingly uncomfortable with the network’s direction after the 2020 election and that he had complained specifically about Tucker Carlson’s reporting on Fox Nation, the network’s streaming service. He has said “there has not been a moment when I have second-guessed myself” about the decision to leave Fox for a new show on the streaming service CNN+.

“Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” has just been renewed for its fourth season, but is now on CNN Max, per The Hollywood Reporter. The show has traveled a rocky road; CNN+ shut down a month after Wallace’s show started. The show then went to HBO Max and CNN on Sunday nights. In addition to his new home on CNN Max, Wallace is hosting a new show on CNN on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. MST.

While Wallace remains one of America’s most respected news anchors, the volatility of the past few years has likely cost him viewers and influence. Still, he has a wide network of sources and CNN promises “sharp commentary and high-energy discussions” on his Saturday morning show.

7. Shepard Smith

Shepard Smith shocked even his Fox colleagues when he announced that he was leaving the network in 2019, reportedly over escalating tensions with Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. He left mid-contract, even though he was said to have made around $15 million a year.

A year later, he seemed to have found a home at CNBC, which, according to Forbes, “reportedly spent millions on Smith, building him a studio and hiring him a show team.”

But not enough Fox viewers, if any, went with him to make a success of “The News with Shepard Smith.” The show was was cancelled after two years, and Mark Joyella wrote for Forbes, “In the virtual news desert of after-market-hours-CNBC, Smith’s talent was wasted.”

The Wall Street Journal had noted the challenge confronting the veteran broadcaster, saying, “Mr. Smith will be joining a network with a much smaller audience. At Fox News, Mr. Smith’s afternoon newscast averaged 1.3 million viewers during his last quarter. The 7 p.m. time slot he is taking over at CNBC has averaged fewer than 250,000 viewers so far this year, according to Nielsen.”

That said, Smith built a reputation that is still seen by some as the gold standard of reporting, and people on social media are still talking about him, wondering where he is. Some express hopes that CNN or MSNBC will hire him, although the terms of his departure might prohibit that in the short term.