Tucker Carlson has reached his limit with Fox News’s attempts to damage his reputation and is preparing to unleash a coordinated attack on the network.
According to reports, Carlson wants Fox News to let him out of his contract so he can work for a rival or start his own media company.
Bryan Freedman, the lawyer Carlson hired for the contract fight said: “The idea that anyone is going to silence Tucker and prevent him from speaking to his audience is beyond preposterous.”
Carlson’s contract expires in January 2025.
Fox does not want to compete with Tucker, however, so will be reluctant to end his contract early, especially before the 2024 election.
The network is trying to pay out his contract and keep him off the air and away from any rivals.
But Tucker wants to get back to work.
Sources close to Carlson told Axios that Tucker is seriously looking at starting a direct-to-consumer media outlet like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly did.
Tucker made a short video after his firing to tell his fans to stay tuned.
That post has 80 million views so the audience is there.
And Tucker is ready to make his move.
Sources close to Tucker told Axios the gloves are coming off:
“Tucker knows where a lot of bodies are buried and is ready to start drawing a map.
“They’re coming to him and saying: ‘Do you want me to hit Fox?’
“He’s been saying: ‘No. I want to get this done quiet and clean.’
“Now, we’re going from peacetime to Defcon 1.
“His team is preparing for war. He wants his freedom,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Fox News Channel’s primetime viewership in its first week without Tucker Carlson took a huge hit dropping 29.6% from the previous week.
SCOOP: Tucker Carlson is preparing to unleash allies to attack Fox News in an effort to bully the network into letting him work for — or start — a right-wing rival, sources close to him tell Axios. https://t.co/IkW3mBfV3y
— Axios (@axios) May 7, 2023
According to The LA Times:
Fox News Channel averaged 1.449 million viewers for its prime-time programming between April 24 and Sunday, third among cable networks, according to live-plus-same-day figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday.
It averaged 2.058 million viewers the previous week when it did not have to face coverage of the NFL draft for two nights.
Fox News Channel had none of the week’s top 10 cable programs and only three in the 20…
The previous week Fox News had eight of the top 20 — five episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (two of those in the top 10) and three episodes of “Hannity.”
In Carlson’s final week before being fired, the final five editions of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” accounted for each of Fox News Channel’s five largest prime-time audiences.
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