They were on very different networks and did very different things to attract very different ratings.
But Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon’s synchronized exits from the cable news landscape on Monday marked the end of an era for their industry — the most combative and partisan since Ted Turner introduced the concept of 24-hour news to television more than 40 years ago. .
No equivalence can be drawn between the two hosts. Mr. Carlson often led the ratings by rampaging Fox News with white nationalist and bogus conspiracy stories that put him in a league of his own. Mr. Lemon became known for his anti-Trump rants that were tame by comparison—and received much smaller ratings—but could come off as hot by CNN’s standards.
But in their most recent incarnations, Mr. carlson and mr. Lemon both products of the Trump years – set-top-box warriors who often made headlines themselves by feeding generous helpings of outrage and outrage to their audiences.
Now, in several ways, their oustings represent at least a temporary retreat from the excesses of media coverage that spawned Trump’s election, presidency, and post-presidency.
“There was a race on many mainstream channels to condemn Trump first to celebrate his troubles,” said Stephen F. Hayes, a founder of the conservative site The Dispatch. And on Fox, especially in prime time, there was an exaggerated effort to defend him and reinforce his lies.”
Mr. Hayes, who quit his job as a Fox analyst over Mr. Carlson’s promotion of conspiracy theories about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, optimistically said, “We can hope this is a signal for broader institutional change.”
Questions remain about the specifics of both exits, and both situations involved factors other than their overall editorial approach.
Mr. Carlson had become an embarrassing figure due to the copious material produced in the defamation suit Dominion Voting Systems brought against Fox, which settled last week at the eleventh hour for $787.5 million.
Pre-trial e-mails and text messages revealed that Mr. Carlson mocked Mr. Trump, even as he greeted him on his program, and used foul and misogynistic language about a lawyer covering the election plots. the voting machines of Dominion, Sidney Powell, propagated. In another lawsuit pending in Delaware, Carlson’s former head of booking for the show, Abby Grossberg, accuses Mr. Carlson and his staff of using similarly foul language about women. That behavior — which Ms. Grossberg claims created a toxic work environment — appears to have been just as much a factor in his ouster as anything else.
The deposition of Mr. Lemon came after making a sexist and age-appropriate comment on a CNN morning show that Republican presidential nominee Nikki Haley was not “in her prime” because, as he put it, “a woman is considered to be in her prime.” her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. The statement was highly offensive in every way. But in television terms, it also strayed into cardinal sin territory — threatening to alienate a key demographic from the ratings. Although Mr. Lemon apologized, the network eventually concluded that his future had become unsustainable.
But neither situation can be viewed outside of where the men stood on the shifting plates of the fixed cable news.
Mr. Lemon was operating in a new environment at CNN, where a new network president, Chris Licht, made it clear he wanted to do away with what he sees as the more partisan sides that emerged in the Trump years. As Mr. Licht told advertisers last June, “At a time when extremes dominate cable news, we will try to take a different path.” Steering CNN to that middle ground also happens to be the priority of David Zaslav, the CEO of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, even if that means lower viewing figures and therefore less income. “Viewing numbers are damn,” he has said.
It was not least because of this shift that Mr. Light last year Mr. Lemon moved from his 10 p.m. show and assigned him co-host of a new CNN breakfast show. “CNN This Morning” was positioned as a lighter, more conversational — and less tense — program than the one Mr. Lemon was evicted from.
Still, it didn’t quite last. “Don Lemon is a lightning rod because he really came to the fore at a time when that was celebrated and encouraged in prime time,” admitted Mr. Comment on a media conference held by Semafor earlier this month. “CNN went away from that and Don went away from that.” Now CNN has moved on with Don.
The signal is a little less clear from Fox News. The network and its leaders Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch had stood by Mr. Carlson for years as he issued widespread condemnation for spouting false and racist conspiracies that earned him such cachet among so many of the Trump faithful.
They seemed to do this for a fundamental reason: the high ratings and considerable income he earned from it. Even as the Dominion trial appeared to be winding down, Mr. Carlson took it a step further by compiling reports that falsely portrayed the January 6 attack as a mostly peaceful event. It sent a signal that even under the threat of a massive lawsuit, ratings at Fox were outpacing everything.
After the settlement with Dominion last week, Fox was faced with the unanswered question of whether the experience of the case was so intense that Fox News backed away from airing the kind of rampant, bogus conspiracy content that gave Dominion such a strong hand in court. . .
The abrupt end of Mr. Carlson’s run at Fox News may not be a sign of a wider downturn ahead — indeed, there are several indications to the contrary. But his removal from Fox’s prime time is a setback in itself, and a pretty big one.
But then again, over the course of the past 40 years, cable news, in its constant pursuit of ratings and relevance, has inexorably moved toward ever sharper programming and personalities. The departures of Mr. Carlson and Mr. Lemon could mark the end of an era in cable news. But if Fox and CNN can’t resist the siren call of Mr. Trump’s attention-grabbing box of tricks in pursuit of ratings, who’s to say what the next one will really be like?
