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Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, the media company said in a statement on Monday, less than a week after Fox News and parent company Fox Corp settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.
The settlement averted a trial putting one of the world’s top media companies in the crosshairs over its coverage of vote-rigging claims in the 2020 U.S. election.
Carlson had been expected to testify in the Dominion trial. Dominion had alleged that statements made on Carlson’s show after the 2020 election were defamatory and that messages between Carlson and his team were proof that he and his team knew the falsehood of claims that Denver-based Dominion’s ballot-counting machines were used to manipulate the election in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.
Carlson’s last program was April 21, the company said in a statement. It said that “Fox News Tonight” will air live at 8 p.m. EST starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.
Carlson’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” dominated prime-time cable news for years. In the first quarter of 2023, the show averaged more than 3.24 million viewers, more than twice as many viewers as any show on any other cable news network, according to the Nielsen ratings. Only Fox News’ 5 p.m. ET “The Five” topped Carlson in average viewers (3.25 million per show).
Copyright 2023 Thomson/Reuters