- Tucker Carlson first launched Tucker on Twitter after Fox News ousted him in April 2023.
- His first show appeared to be widely watched. But views on his videos have since declined sharply.
Earlier this year, Tucker Carlson went from Fox News' most popular primetime host to a fired ex-employee.
He at first seemed to recover quickly.
The famous conservative television personality launched a new show, Tucker on Twitter, which debuted in June with what appeared to be strong ratings. His first show garnered more than 26 million "video views," a Twitter metric that counts a view as anyone who watches a video for more than 2 seconds.
It's not the most reliable metric for the popularity of a show since many people might just be scrolling past it. But whatever the faults of the metric, it has declined significantly over the course of his last eight shows. His most recent show, for instance, only got 3.8 million video views.
That's an 86% drop.
Carlson's video views on Twitter — which are no longer publicly available due to a policy change at Twitter — were first reported by Matt Binder, a reporter with digital news site Mashable, who told Insider he accessed them by using an old version of the Twitter app for Android.
Fox News fired Tucker Carlson in April, just days after the company settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems concerning the falsehoods Fox News promoted about the 2020 election. The network has not stated why they fired Carlson. Prior to the settlement, Dominion released several texts from Carlson and his coworkers criticizing the network's coverage of the election.
Controversy surrounded Tucker on Twitter from its inception, with Fox News' lawyers alleging Carlson's new show violated his contract with the network, which prevents him from appearing in competing media until the end of his contract in 2025.
The downtrend in Carlson's own viewers coincides with the overall decline of Twitter. Last month, The New York Times reported that the platform's advertising sales had dropped by 59%, likely in part because of what the outlet called an "unprecedented rise" in hate speech on the platform.
Twitter now also faces new competition from Meta's Threads — which gained more than 30 million downloads on its first day alone as users seek new platforms to replace the struggling Twitter. An attorney for Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in April 2022 and has overseen its decline, sent Threads a cease-and-desist letter, alleging it hired former Twitter employees and copied the platform.
Tucker Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.