https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/05/04/tucker-carlson-future-2024-gop-debate/
WASHINGTON POST
Lesser-known cable channels are itching to build a new brand around him. Industry experts think he could make a mint in podcasting.
But Tucker Carlson — who was fired by Fox News last week at the height of his popularity and influence in right-wing punditry — has aspirations of moving into a larger role that doesn’t limit him to a single medium, according to people familiar with his thinking. And he is willing to walk away from some of the millions that Fox is contractually obligated to pay him, if that would give him the flexibility to have a prominent voice in the 2024 election cycle.
Most ambitiously, Carlson wants to moderate his own GOP candidate forum, outside of the usual strictures of the Republican National Committee debate system. The idea, which he has discussed with Donald Trump, the front-runner for the party nomination, would test his vaunted sway over conservative politics. And it would take a jab at his former employer — Fox is hosting the first official primary debate, which Trump has threatened not to attend — if he can manage to make his grandest plan happen.
Ultimately, Carlson is scrambling to try to avoid the fate of other once-towering former Fox News personalities, who in exile from the network have found lucrative gigs but nothing like their former positions of influence.
“If I’m sitting in his seat right now, I’m plotting really my own media company, how I want to build it,” said Joel Cheatwood, a former Fox News and CNN executive who helped found theblaze.com with Glenn Beck after his forced departure from Fox News in 2011. “Whether you like him or not, there are very few individual brands out there that you can almost guarantee an incredibly significant following from day one.”
Carlson’s Fox contract reportedly runs through the end of 2024, which would limit his options, though a source close to Carlson said he might accept less money than he is owed to be able to get back into the media game before then. Hollywood lawyer Bryan Freedman, who is representing Carlson, did not respond to a message asking about his contractual status.
Among the smaller broadcasters that have approached Carlson are the faith-based Trinity Broadcast Network and the far-right One America News Network. OAN’s founder and chief executive, Robert Herring Sr., fulsomely praised Carlson as having “the largest and most passionate audience in cable news,” adding that the company has “made our interest clear.”
A stronger pitch has come from Newsmax, the conservative media company that has seen a prime-time ratings surge this past week at the same time Fox was losing viewers from Carlson’s old time slot.
Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy approached Carlson and his associates with a wide-ranging proposal that, in the words of one person familiar with the pitch, would involve “rebranding Newsmax under Tucker’s name.” Carlson and his advisers are intrigued by the idea of his own media company, and taking over an existing one would be easier than building from the ground up — though any possible deal would boil down to unresolved questions of money and editorial control.
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