Should Tucker Carlson create an independent online show following his surprise firing by Fox News, a sizable portion of the American population likely would be interested in watching, according to a poll released Wednesday.
A poll of 1,500 eligible U.S. voters by Redfield & Wilton Strategies done for Newsweek on Sunday, 16% said they would be "significantly likely" to watch an independent online show hosted by Carlson, and 20% said they "likely" would be viewers.
The poll found 27% would be "significantly unlikely" to watch, with 17% saying they would be "unlikely" to watch and 21% responding they "don't know."
There is a lot of speculation about what Carlson's next move might be, although a lot could depend on his contract status with Fox and how soon he can negotiate his release from the network. Oddsmaker Bovada has Glenn Beck's online network, Blaze TV, as the 3-2 favorite in landing Carlson; Newsmax is next at 5-2.
Carlson was averaging about 3 million viewers a night in the week leading up to his firing April 24, and Fox's viewership has dropped significantly. In the week following his departure, Fox News' ratings on what had been Carlson's coveted 8 p.m. time slot dropped 56%, averaging just 1.4 million a night.
"It's hard to overestimate Carlson's importance to Fox News," Thomas Gift, founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek. "The massive ratings that he was able to bring in, combined with the precipitous drop in viewership at the 8 p.m. EDT hour since he left, is reflective of just how much Carlson had become the face of the Fox News franchise.
"The network's leadership seems to think he's replaceable, but that might prove overly optimistic. Just because in the past viewers have stuck with Fox News after, for example, the departure of Bill O'Reilly or Megyn Kelly doesn't mean they'll continue to do so post-Carlson. That's especially true now with the growth of so many new alternative outlets, like Newsmax, where viewers can get their right-wing fix."
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