Fox News announced Monday that Jesse Watters will replace news commentator Tucker Carlson in the nightly lineup as the 8 pm (4 pm Alaska) anchor. Laura Ingraham moves to the 7 pm slot, Sean Hannity remains at 9 pm, and Greg Gutfeld moves to 10 pm.
Watters became popular during segments of the political talk show The O’Reilly Factor, with Bill O’Reilly, making his way with a man-on-the-street interview that became its own show, “Watters’ World” in 2015. Fox fired O’Reilly in 2017 over sexual harassment claims. He was at the time, the network’s biggest draw.
Carlson was fired in April, in an instance many believe to be part of a deal made with Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox News for defamation for allowing hosts, contributors, and guests to speak badly about the voting system company.
Meanwhile, Carlson has moved to Twitter to produce his show, which is a much shorter segment at this stage than his Fox News hour. His last episode had over 28 million viewers.
Fox, according to Nielsen live plus same day data for May 2023, verged 1.09 million total day viewers, 1.42 million total primetime viewers, 135,000 adults 25-54 in primetime and 126,000 adults 25-54 in total day. But Fox News saw substantial audience drop off in primetime with Carlson now out of the equation.
“The network dropped -32% in average total primetime viewers and -44% in the A25-54 demo, as well as -16% in total day viewers—and -22% in the total day A25-54 demo versus the previous month,” Nielsen reported.
