Anonymous Pentagon officials and establishment Republicans aren’t the only ones reportedly thrilled with Fox News’ purge of Tucker Carlson. Corporate advertisers are returning to fill the ad breaks in Carlson’s former hour on Fox.
Via The Hill:
A number of blue-chip advertisers are beginning to buy new ad time within Fox News’s 8 p.m. hour in the days following former host Tucker Carlson’s departure from the network.
Major corporations, such as Proctor and Gamble, are buying commercials they typically had not purchased during Carlson’s six years of hosting at 8 p.m., network executives told Variety this week.
“We have had over 40 new advertisers come into the hour since we launched the new program, including some of the largest in the country and, really, across all major categories,” Jeff Collins, executive vice president of ad sales at Fox News Media said during an interview with the outlet. “We have seen new advertisers come in, and new demand.”
Targeting advertisers is the Social Justice™ left’s favorite tactic to get dissenting views taken off of corporate media. Before Carlson’s show got axed, a consortium of “nonprofits” bankrolled by dubious sources had been angling to cut off Carlson’s advertising revenue for years.
The biggest corporations with the funds to bankroll the legacy media are almost all pernicious influences on American politics, save for a few notable exceptions like MyPillow which, not coincidentally, was one of the few remaining advertisers on Carlson’s Fox News show. In addition to having their own agendas and interests often at odds with average Americans’, they are also extremely skittish about any kind of negative press due to associations with personae non gratae like Tucker Carlson. They are much more comfortable with milquetoast lackeys like Sean Hannity who won’t ever rock the boat.
The sad news for the big-name advertisers is that fewer and fewer potential customers are going to watch the shows that they advertise on, especially when they start to lean heavily enough on the talent that it becomes apparent that an unseen censorial hand is curating what the audience is allowed to see or hear.
Another worthy takeaway from the whole Fox ad-apocalypse disaster is that the only way to platform views critical of the corporate state, in the long run, is to develop alternative monetization strategies.
Substack, PJ Media, and other platforms and outlets increasingly rely on direct funding from their audiences, cutting out the advertising middlemen altogether. I believe, not just because I both have a Substack and write for PJ Media, that this is the most ethical and sustainable funding model available — if, perhaps, more unwieldy than a handful of big-name companies sponsoring content.
As far as Tucker’s future, I’d be surprised if he ends up in any situation again in which he’s indirectly censored by ad boycotts. I suspect he’ll also adopt some form of the reader/viewer-supported model similar to the one PJ Media uses.
Editor’s note: Ben hit the nail on the head! With every passing day, it seems as if there are fewer news sources you can trust. Some are run by huge corporations. Others have billionaire donors calling the shots. At PJ Media, we call our own shots and bring you the unvarnished truth, free from the heavy-handed constraints that hamper the corporate media. Our VIP members make this possible. For the price of a cup of coffee every month, you can become part of the team. Sign up here and use the promo code SAVEAMERICA for a 40% discount on your membership.
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