Tucker Carlson's Show Bled 70 Advertisers in Less Than a Year
Tucker Carlson had been flirting with anti-immigrant talking points for a while. Then, in December 2018, he claimed that American leaders "demand that you shut up and accept" immigrants—and organized public protest mounted. In question was the primetime host's comment that, "We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided."
That prompted the first wave of boycotts of his show, with the activist group Sleeping Giants calling on advertisers to pull out or be associated with Carlson's rhetoric. In March, he lost more advertisers, including Outback and Capital One, after old recordings surfaced of him calling Iraqi people "semi-literate primitive monkeys" and saying if immigrants come to the U.S. they should be "really smart" or "hot."
The boycotts had a definite impact: In April of this year, Variety reported that "ad dollars attached to Tucker Carlson Tonight fell 47.8 percent, to $48.3 million from almost $92.7 million in 2017." As CNN described it at the time, "Long gone are blue chip advertisers like Lexus and Samsung. Filling the void are the likes of Home Chef and Aspen Dental, along with promos for Fox News programs."
Carlson has responded by doubling down. He claimed that Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, once a refugee from Somalia, is "living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country." He said immigrants have "plundered" America. And, most recently, he called white supremacy "a hoax," just days after a gunman murdered more than 20 people in El Paso, Texas, to stop what he called a "Hispanic invasion."
Shortly after that episode aired, Carlson took a vacation. According to Media Matters, Fox News had hoped that this would slow some advertisers from jumping ship, but it doesn't seem to have accomplished much. Since that episode, Nestlé, SteinMart, HelloFresh, Calm, and SoFi have all pulled advertising from Tucker Carlson Tonight. One advertiser, Long John Silver's, pulled out of advertising on Fox altogether. Since December 2018, Carlson's show has lost a total of 70 advertisers, and it's dipped from a high of 36 paid ads per episode in October of 2018 to only 15 per episode as of this month. That's almost a 60 percent drop in just 10 months.
This puts Fox News in an awkward position. Tucker Carlson Tonight remains one of their top-rated shows—in the second quarter of 2018 it was the second most-watched cable news show, behind only Fox's Hannity, according to Deadline. But the campaign against Carlson has been going strong for eight months now. In an era when advertisers are trying to cash in on appearing socially conscious, it's hard to attract them to a show that repeats white nationalist talking points so much that actual neo-Nazis like Andrew Anglin call Carlson "literally our greatest ally."
From pockets in small town Minnesota to Christchurch, New Zealand, a racist conspiracy theory has taken hold—sometimes to deadly consequences.
Originally Appeared on GQ
