Tucker Carlson's next move

• Tucker Carlson's former colleagues and friends are already imploring him to strike out on his own.
• But launching an independent venture has its own challenges.
• Nobody at Fox "was as connected to the MAGA base as Tucker Carlson," one ex-Trump official said.

When Michael Caputo — the conservative operative and former Trump administration official — finally felt well enough to socialize after a bout with throat cancer, he met up with his old friend Tucker Carlson at a Florida restaurant.

Caputo had known Carlson since the early 1990s when both moved to Washington, D.C. after college and ran into each other at bars and parties young conservatives frequented. After takin a leave from the White House and receiving cancer treatment, Caputo had moved his family to South Florida and was working for the Spanish-language conservative radio network Americano Media. 

In January 2022, Caputo summoned the strength to leave his home and serve as audience of one for Fox News's most-watched host, who lives in Florida during the winter months. The pair had talked about the day's news before shifting to the New Testament and the British theologian CS Lewis. Then Carlson sought to lift his friend's spirits.

"He said, 'Before you know it Caputo, I'll be gone from Fox and you'll be healthy. The world keeps turning man,'" Caputo recalled. 

"When he said to me about my cancer, at the time of course my reaction was, it was hyperbolic," Caputo said in an interview. "I thought both were equally unlikely."

Perhaps Carlson realized his tenure atop cable news had an inevitable expiration date.

This Monday morning — just 10 minutes before the news was read aloud on live TV — Fox News Media CEO Suzanne called Carlson to deliver the news that he was out. The previous Friday show would be his last, and he would have no farewell on Fox.  

Carlson still hasn't commented on his departure. He was negotiating a new five-year deal that would have kept him at the network through 2029, according to reports, but instead will receive the remainder of his $20 million contract. Carlson's website invites fans to sign up for a text alert to learn about his next move.

Whatever the reason, Carlson's dismissal signals a new realignment in conservative media.

"Nobody on the network was as connected to the MAGA base as Tucker Carlson," said Caputo, who worked on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and later served as spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in the early days of the Covid pandemic. 

"This really blew the minds of the Trump base in a way we haven't seen in quite some time. We could look back on what happened as the trigger for a lot of different things," Caputo said. He added that he'd received "more calls and texts about Tucker that day" than on the day that news broke about Trump's imminent indictment by Manhattan prosecutors. 

Other former cable personalities have struggled to retain their massive audiences after leaving Fox News but Carlson has cultivated a deeper relationship with the nation's far-right viewership.  

Last month, Tucker Carlson Tonight was the top-rated program among all news channels with 3.25 million viewers including 421,000 viewers in the coveted age 25-54 demographic. His sit-down with the former president on April 11, the first interview Trump gave since his arraignment, drew 3.7 million viewers.

Carlson's former colleagues and friends are already imploring him to strike out on his own. Bill O'Reilly predicted he would "make a bloody fortune" with a Joe Rogan-style streaming show. Roger Stone, a longtime GOP operative, suggested Alex Jones's Infowars multimedia website was a more plausible model.

"Given the declining influence of cable television, I think he should move to an Internet-based program under his own control, where I am highly confident that his massive audience would follow him, and he would continue to be the most influential, conservative commentator in the country," Stone told Insider over text message.

Megyn Kelly said as soon as he launched his own podcast or digital show, his audience would follow him and he would "crush it."

"He can make huge money in the independent lane as long as he has a fan base, which he clearly does," Kelly said on her show Monday. "And over here in this lane he doesn't have anybody telling him what he can and cannot say."

But launching an independent venture has its own challenges. For one thing, it would mean that Carlson — rather than Fox — could be on the hook if he were to be on the losing side of a defamation case. 

"People would want to tie him up in lawsuits. Someone of his stature has more difficulty going off on his own. Whatever he does he has to consider lawfare, his vulnerability and his ability to pay," Caputo said. 

He will have plenty of options if he wants to join an existing company, where he could command upwards of $30 million per year. Glenn Beck invited him to join Blaze Media, the conservative media company he launched in 2010. 

He could fit in easily at John Catsimatidis's conservative talk lineup at 77 WABC, which boasts hosts like Curtis Sliwa, Anthony Weiner, and Greg Kelly.

"WABC has hired a lot of talented people but we're not chasing anybody," Catsimatidis told Insider. "If somebody comes to see us, we evaluate."

Upstart right-wing cable companies Newsmax and OANN would be crazy not to consider Carlson. His addition would change their identities in the public overnight although it is unclear whether either network could afford him or would want to as they face their own defamation litigation from voting companies.

"If he did want to strike back at Fox News, going to Newsmax would be a move," Nicole Hemmer, Vanderbilt professor of history and an expert on right-wing media, said. "Newsmax sees a real opportunity here. It would be easy for Carlson to say, 'Fox is another part of the corporate media, they don't like Trump or you, they fired me, they don't think anything about you, the audience.' They could try to draw people who are mad at Fox pretty easily."

Fox has not seemed concerned they would lose any momentum after ditching Carlson. 

The network has been the most watched cable news channel for 85 consecutive quarters although viewership for all news networks fell in March compared with the same month in 2022 and Fox's primetime lineup. Still, only 2.6 million viewers tuned into Fox to watch Carlson's replacement on Monday night while Carlson averaged about 3.2 million viewers on Monday nights over the previous three weeks, according to CNN. 

Meanwhile, Newsmax's ratings more than tripled to 531,000 during that 8 pm hour from the same time the previous week.

"For a while Fox News has been moving to become establishment media and Tucker Carlson's removal is a big milestone in that effort," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said in a statement. "Millions of viewers who liked the old Fox News have made the switch to Newsmax and this will only fuel that trend."

Hemmer believes that Fox is in a more precarious position than they realize since they don't have a replacement lined up with similar credibility among conservative viewers. A rotating cast of Fox talent will occupy the 8 pm chair for now.

"They need to find a way to shore up the part of his audience that is likely to float over to Newsmax or some other site," Hemmer said. "They have to double-down on a Carlson-like figure. They can't do a Fox News show in that slot. They have to go hard MAGA in order to keep their audience."

But Murdoch, who's 92, won't be around forever and Fox's reign over conservative media and cable news could change rapidly. Caputo believes Carlson has a rare opportunity to play a key role in the future of digital media — whatever it is. 

"The way media is going to be consumed through 2024 and after is going to be completely different," Caputo said. "He's leaving a cable-born enterprise and entering a whole new world. It'll be amazing whatever he does. It will be great."