The Calculus Behind Firing Tucker Carlson

admin April 25, 2023

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Fox News’ firing Tucker Carlson, cable news’ most popular primetime host, shocked the media and the political world yesterday. Few thought that the $788 million defamation settlement between Fox and Dominion Voting Systems would affect Mr. Carlson.

But Fox and Rupert Murdoch, accustomed to seeking disputes and legal settlements at the cost of doing business, may be betting that getting rid of Mr. Carlson is a smarter economic move.

The impact on Fox is undeniable. Since winning the primetime show in 2017, Carlson has become the brightest star in the Fox News orbit, with “Tucker Carlson Tonight” averaging more than 3 million viewers nightly.

The show didn’t feature top-tier advertisers, many of whom backed out of his frequent controversies, but his formidable viewership numbers have hampered future negotiations with cable providers about the fees they pay to carry their networks. (Fox Corporation shares fell 3% yesterday, which is lower than after the company settled with Dominion last week.)

Carlson’s contract, worth $20 million a year, is expected to be paid.

His dismissal was swift. Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch, with his father’s blessing, reportedly discussed the dismissal of Carlson with Fox News chief Suzanne Scott on Friday and informed the hosts. just ten minutes ago An announcement has been made.

Mr. Carlson may have gotten too hot to handle.

The Dominion lawsuit revealed Carlson’s often private comments that profanely slandered colleagues, sources, and perhaps crucially, his superiors.
A former producer is suing Fox News after accusing Carlson of overseeing a hostile and discriminatory work environment.
And the Murdoch family is reportedly tired of trying to surround their controversial hosts.

Again, Semafor’s Max Tani said that Carlson’s firing Only recent sudden and seemingly erratic movements By Murdoch.And I’m wondering if there are others big shoes that drop.

Mr. and Mrs. Murdoch clearly hope Carlson can be replaced. That was true when Fox banished heavyweights like Bill O’Reilly. But the host’s influx of support from Trump and conservatives suggests it’s not taken for granted this time. It’s unclear where Mr. Carlson will go next. Sometimes rival outlets like Newsmax beckon and enter politics independently.

Carlson wasn’t the only media star to be shown the door yesterday. CNN banished anchor Don Lemon just hours after it aired. (The reason is that after he came under fire for sexist comments, some guests were unwilling to appear on-air with him. CNN’s internal research found that viewers showed his declining popularity among

Lemon didn’t take the news well, tweeting, “I’m stunned.”

this is what is happening

President Biden announces re-election. In a three-minute video posted this morning, he urged voters to “get this job done.” The widely anticipated move sets him up for a possible rematch with Donald Trump. Biden is expected to meet with major donors later this week.

UBS is withdrawing billions of dollars of new client money. Swiss banks today Acquired $28 billion in new assets This includes $7 billion after announcing the acquisition of Credit Suisse. A hit rival, he lost $69 billion in customer money in the same period.

The Court of Appeals heavily favors Apple in its fight against Epic Games. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the iPhone maker’s control of the App Store did not violate antitrust laws. But the judge also said developers should be able to bypass Apple’s fees and direct users to payment systems other than the App Store.

Disney’s latest layoffs include top ESPN executives. The media giant launched a new round of job cuts yesterday. Russell WolfOversaw the ESPN+ video service. Reducing his streaming costs is a priority for his CEO at Disney, Bob Iger, who is working to slim down the company.

Coinbase sues SEC This lawsuit is intended to force regulators respond to petitions for rulemaking Filed by crypto exchanges seeking greater clarification in their enforcement policies. That followed a disclosure by Coinbase that the agency was investigating the company for possible securities law violations.

First Republic asks for help

First Republic’s brutal fallout yesterday after customers withdrew billions of dollars in deposits, profits fell by about a third and the bank revealed plans to cut its workforce by a quarter. Quarterly earnings reports sent stocks plummeting. Withdrawals are easing and the worst may be over.

But First Republic still needs to shrink its balance sheet and reduce its losses. The question is how.

As a result, the depth of the problem became clear. Customers withdrew $102 billion from First Republic last month. That’s well over half of his $176 billion he had at the end of last year. During the same period, it borrowed $92 billion, primarily from the Federal Reserve and government-backed lending groups. Loans helped stabilize finances, but higher cost Than using customer deposits.

(There’s been some good news: First Republic says it holds 90% of advisors in the wealth management department.)

what next? Banks hope the government will encourage the country’s largest bank to come up with a more lasting than last resort solution to the problem, DealBook says. It doesn’t mean injecting, but it does mean corralling the big bank bosses and pressuring them to find a solution.

For governments, the optics of doing so are far from ideal, But the failure of the First Republic poses broader risks, putting even more pressure on the banking system at a time when smaller lenders remain vulnerable, especially given that banks cater primarily to the wealthy. It will be a burden.

It will also rekindle the question of whether the government plans to support all uninsured deposits. (Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has had mixed messages on this point.) Bank failures risk hurting the government’s insurance deposit fund, which is funded by taxes levied on banks. .

The big banks haven’t committed, and First Republic’s big losses probably won’t help. Given the bank’s recent surge in earnings, the government also doesn’t have the same cudgel as it did when it pressured JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns in 2008. Damon mourned for a long time).

It could close the window to secure a deal before it sends another big shock to the industry. Analysts at Autonomous wrote that “First Republic’s stand-alone earnings performance remains worse than we feared,” and expressed surprise that the stock didn’t drop more than 20% after hours. “We will remain very cautious.”

$500 billion

— Yesterday’s stock market capitalization was LVMH, a French luxury group and the first of its kind for a European company. The company’s stock soared on the back of rapid growth in China, making its founder Bernard Arnault the richest man in the world.

Open Source Battle Takes to Court

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and payments firm Block, launched the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund last year to help cryptocurrency developers. But the first lawsuit, scheduled to go to court in the UK tomorrow, could have broader implications for the tech industry and the way we think about open source software development as a whole.

The lawsuit argues that open source developers should be held liable for the theft. A Seychelles-based crypto firm is suing a group of developers who contributed code to the Bitcoin network, a set of decentralized computers that track all transactions. This network is an open source project, and like most software, it is made under the terms of free use and exemption of liability.

Australian developer Craig Wright (who also claims to be the man behind the pseudonym of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto) released 111,000 bitcoins after his home computer was hacked in 2020. His company, Tulip Trading, claims Bitcoin programmers control an open source network and are obligated to block illegal transactions. Last year, a British court dismissed the case on grounds of jurisdiction, but that decision was overturned on appeal in February.

Open source model fosters collaboration and innovation, and have been integral to software development for decades. Programmers generally do not get any direct financial benefit from participating. Rather, they share their skills to build coding communities and earn credibility.

“These lawsuits can have a serious negative impact on large-scale open source development and affect our lives in ways that we may not realize until it’s too late,” Dorsey said. says.

The defendant in the case, Greg Maxwell, told DealBook he started working on the Bitcoin network in 2010 because he was interested in the idea of money without an intermediary. But I was sued and stopped. “People don’t participate when they’re responsible,” he said.