Tucker Carlson Leaves A Bigger Hole At Fox Than Don Lemon At CNN

The firings of Tucker Carlson at Fox FOXA +0.4% News and Don Lemon at CNN less than one hour apart rocked the cable news industry. Both anchors had been at the network for years and were a familiar face to millions. It appeared that neither had an inkling their departure was imminent. Nonetheless, despite the timing they left their cable network for different reasons and their loss will have a different impact.

Tucker Carlson has been a familiar face on cable news networks for 25 years at CNN and MSNBC before joining Fox News in 2009. In 2017, Tucker Carlson Tonight replaced the top-rated O’Reilly Factor in the 8 p.m. (ET) time period after Bill O’Reilly was fired. At the time of Carlson’s termination, his show was the top-rated primetime program on cable television averaging over three million viewers nightly. Despite the large audience, Carlson’s controversial on-air comments led to many marketers pulling their ads and several advocacy groups demanding Fox News replace Carlson.