How did Tucker Carlson's ratings change after his controversial comments in 2023?

1. The immediate ratings cliff at Fox News after Carlson’s exit

When Fox announced it and Carlson had “agreed to part ways” in late April 2023, Nielsen data and press reports documented an abrupt collapse in the audience for his former 8 p.m. hour: one widely cited snapshot showed substitute programming drawing about 1.33 million viewers, down roughly 56% from the ~3.05 million Carlson averaged the week before ^{[5] [1]}. Multiple outlets characterized the loss as dramatic, with Newsweek and Forbes describing primetime and 8 p.m. slot audiences roughly halving in the two weeks after his departure ^{[6] [7]}.

2. Wider, network‑level impact reported for May 2023

Coverage placed Carlson’s exit in the context of a broader Fox ratings slump. Forbes reported that Fox’s primetime audience fell by about 32% month‑to‑month in May 2023 after the ouster, and total‑day viewers declined as well, though the network remained a top cable channel in many dayparts ^[2]. News outlets quoted Fox statements noting Fox still led cable overall, even as the loss of Carlson’s program materially altered primetime dynamics ^{[6] [2]}.

3. Audience migration and short‑term gains for rivals

Immediate post‑Carlson data showed some viewers switching to smaller conservative outlets or to rival cable programming. Newsmax’s 8 p.m. offering, for instance, briefly surged the day Carlson left, drawing several times more viewers than earlier that week and narrowing the gap with CNN’s 8 p.m. audience ^[8]. Reporting framed this as a temporary migration as Fox searched for programming to stabilize the slot ^{[8] [9]}.

4. Carlson’s independent platform: big launch, fast decay

After leaving Fox, Carlson moved to a self‑distributed format on Twitter/X. Early metrics were eye‑catching—his inaugural video reportedly got tens of millions of views—but Business Insider and Forbes found that video views fell sharply after launch, with reporting that views dropped about 86% from initial episodes in the first weeks ^{[3] [4]}. Forbes summarized the pattern as “down but still outpacing” typical platform video norms—meaning his numbers were smaller than at Fox but still large for social video ^{[7] [4]}.

5. Why the numbers fell: competing explanations in the record

Analysts and outlets offered multiple causes: some coverage pointed to platform‑specific factors (overall declines in Twitter/X usage and ad revenues under new ownership), which could depress view counts regardless of host ^{[3] [4]}. Other reporting emphasized brand and advertiser flight from Carlson’s style and controversies while at Fox, and the legal settlement around Fox’s Dominion case that framed his exit ^{[5] [10]}. These explanations are not mutually exclusive in the sources ^{[3] [10] [5]}.

6. The editorial and reputational context that accompanied the ratings story

Journalistic accounts also stress that Carlson’s controversies and the substance of his coverage mattered to both industry and public perception. NPR and Media Matters documented how Carlson mainstreamed fringe narratives that generated pushback from critics and advertisers, context that industry reporting linked to advertiser pullback and reputational cost even when raw viewership was high ^{[10] [11]}. Opinion pieces and longer investigations tied those dynamics to the fallout that contributed to his departure and the subsequent audience shifts ^{[12] [13]}.

7. What the sources do not quantify or resolve

Available sources document large short‑term audience drops at Fox and steep declines in early social‑platform viewership for Carlson ^{[1] [3]}, but they do not provide a uniform, long‑term account of Carlson’s total audience across platforms beyond those initial months—multiple outlets note sustained but smaller audiences on new platforms without consistent cross‑platform totals ^{[7] [4]}. Sources also differ on how much of the Fox decline was permanent versus temporary viewer churn to competitors ^{[8] [6]}.

8. Bottom line for readers

Contemporaneous reporting is clear that Carlson’s April 2023 exit produced an immediate and steep drop in Fox’s 8 p.m. viewership—measured in many accounts as a roughly 50–60% immediate decline and contributing to a broader primetime loss in May—while his independent show saw very large initial view counts that fell precipitously ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Beyond those short‑term numbers, the record in these sources leaves open longer‑term audience trends and cross‑platform totals ^{[7] [4]}.