“How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with guns decided they had to keep order like no one else would?” Carlson asked viewers.
Carlson is the equivalent of the right-hand side of the must-see TV. As a result, he has the support of Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch and an enormous amount of autonomy.
But Carlson has an alliance of sorts with Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son, the Fox patriarch. It was Rupert who chose Carlson to succeed Bill O’Reilly in 2017, sources at the company said. And it was Lachlan who supported Carlson in the controversy after controversy during the Trump era, they said.
The sources said there were a few factors at play: Lachlan shares his father’s contempt for bullying by the “liberal media.” He never wants to appear to surrender to left-wing advertising boycotts. And he thinks Carlson’s overarching messages are worth protecting.
Both men want to be contradictory and enjoy philosophical conversations. They are only two years apart in age. And, pre-pandemic, eating them together when they happened to be in the same city.
Lachlan Murdoch’s priority, according to sources and his own public statements, is the company’s profits. Murdoch is not particularly involved with the editorial side of Fox News. Its importance is for the growth of the company, which is on track to reach $ 2 billion in annual profits.
“You know,” a Fox director joked during my report, “we’re pushing money down the basement.”
Fox benefits from subscription fees and advertising sales. Carlson’s program has eliminated many advertisers, due to a litany of scandals and offensive segments, but he still garners support from some major sponsors.
Earlier this summer, research firm iSpot.tv estimated that Carlson “accounts for 16% of Fox News advertising revenue.”
His biggest advertiser is by far MyPillow, the production company founded by Mike Lindell, who is closely associated with President Trump.
Lindell endorses Fox’s programming by spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising for pillows and other products.
According to iSpot.tv, “almost half of MyPillow’s $ 75 million annual release was spent on Carlson’s show,” twice his investment in 9pm host Sean Hannity and 22pm host Laura Ingraham.
In some ways, MyPillow has supported Carlson when other advertisers have fled.
“We have no talent for drying out,” a driver told me in a moment of sincerity, “because once you go to these fools, you will have no more performances.”
And what about the Fox staff and rank who said they hated Carlson? They are just “warriors of social justice,” said this director with the pejorative term for progressives that was in vogue among conservatives.
As for Carlson, he did not respond to requests for comment from CNN Business on the criticism of his segment Wednesday.
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