New show is hardly popular: Tucker Carlson is still there

Tucker Carlson had to accept a sensitive loss of viewers with the Twitter version of his former Fox News show in recent weeks. Now the 54-year-old apparently wants to found his own media group, with which he can spread his paranoid world view among the people. Carlson found a first partner in a strange right-wing shopping app, with which he is said to have signed a seven-figure sponsorship deal.

Public Square, also known as PublicSq., sees itself as a pioneer in the American culture war, demonstratively opposed to everything that has the reputation of being progressive. “We hate ESG, we hate DIE,” CEO Michael Seifert recently told Breitbart News. The acronyms popular on the right stand for “environmental, social, governance” and for “diversity, equity and inclusion”; they are also understood by Tucker Carlson as slogans which, according to Seifert, “stand for “corrupt philosophies that are destroying our economy”. In other words, for corporations that sympathize with “Black Lives Matter”, celebrate “Pride” month or turn transgender people into advertising media or appear unchristian or politically left-wing.

The “Covering Up of the Truth by Powerful Elites”

Fox News fired Carlson in April. The decisive factors were, among other things, the embarrassing revelations of targeted lies by Carlson and others in the context of the Dominion scandal, as well as Carlson’s internal impertinence and the lawsuit filed by a former employee of his show.

Carlson, who had about 3.5 million viewers with “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News, reported back in June with a video show called “Tucker on Twitter” to present his theses about the “persecution” of conservatives by “woke” leftists, the “covering up of the truth” (e.g. the Capitol storm on January 6, 2021, according to Carlson an FBI-managed riot) by powerful elites and the planned “replacement” of white Americans by to spread immigrants. The premiere reportedly had 26 million “video views” – which, critics noted, gives little indication of viewership numbers, as a “video view” is counted as any viewing longer than two seconds. Business Insider reported the show saw an 86 percent drop in viewership. The eighth episode of the approximately 15-minute show had 3.8 million video views.

The moderator has so far ignored an injunction from Fox News, where Carlson is still contractually bound until 2025. Without Fox News, it lacks reach. The million-dollar contract with Public Square is now intended to signal to investors that it is still interesting. The app, which Carlson is collaborating with and which just went public, is self-promoted for “freedom-loving Americans” who are “pro-life,” “pro-family,” and “pro-freedom.” At the moment, of course, the app is just a directory of companies; by the end of the year, customers should be able to shop directly on the platform – a kind of alternative to Amazon. But you can only do that on the condition that you commit to the ideas of the platform and even endure a “value check”.