After the US cable broadcaster Fox News canceled the show hosted by Tucker Carlson in April, the industry speculated with some passion as to who could succeed the right-wing agitator. On Monday, the broadcaster announced that 44-year-old Jesse Watters had been given the task of following in Carlson’s footsteps. Beginning July 17, Watters is scheduled to start weekdays at 8 p.m. EST to win back viewers who turned away from the station after Carlson’s exit.
Fox News is an opinionated, right-wing conservative broadcaster and does not avoid controversy. Carlson had managed the feat of being considered right-wing even in this environment, which prompted Fox, despite excellent ratings, to take the presenter off the screen. He then announced that he would move his show to Twitter, but Fox warned that he was still contractually bound exclusively. So it’s currently quiet around the previously ubiquitous Carlson.
Watters is usually not as extreme as Carlson, but shares his love of provocation
Industry experts assume that his contract is worth 15 to 20 million dollars a year. It says something about Carlson’s popularity on the right that the network is willing to pay that amount for the time being simply to keep the presenter from appearing elsewhere. An average of 2.6 million people tuned in to Carlson, which made him the highest-rated moderator on cable television. Fox News currently has an average of 1.6 million viewers every hour after 8 p.m.
Watters has so far moderated the hour starting at 7 p.m. He is usually not as extreme as Carlson, but shares his love of provocation. In December 2021, for example, he called for the immunologist Anthony Fauci to be ambushed and the rhetorical “kill shot” given him. Fauci had coordinated the US response to the Covid pandemic and had therefore become a hate figure in right-wing circles. Fauci strongly condemned the choice of words and called for Watters’ immediate dismissal. Fox denied it, saying it was a “metaphor.” A little later, Watters was promoted.
He once said of the lunatic conspiracy cult QAnon that they also did a good job in uncovering important insights into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or the “deep state”. He always considered QAnon to be less dangerous than Antifa. He said so just months before followers of the cult played leading roles in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol.
In earlier years he had conducted street interviews in a series called “Watter’s World”. You know the format: passers-by are overwhelmed with surprising questions, in the very best case it’s funny without embarrassing the respondents. But only in the very best case. Unforgotten is an episode in which Watters asked Chinese Americans in New York’s Chinatown if they knew karate. Karate is a Japanese word. He also asked if he actually had to bow in greeting. And whether the watch he sees there was stolen.
The entry’s soundtrack was the 1974 song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas. Admittedly, an excellent song, but this was clearly about making fun of a minority. The matter made waves, with numerous advocacy groups demanding an apology, and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio said there was no place for this type of racism in the city. Watters said that you shouldn’t take everything so seriously, that his contributions should always be seen with a wink. He refrained from an apology.
Laura Ingraham, who previously performed from 10 p.m. and is one of the most staunch supporters of former President Donald Trump, will take the place at 7 p.m. that was vacated by Watter’s promotion to prime time. Regarding the storming of the Capitol, she expressed the view that it may have been organized by Antifa in order to then blame Trump supporters and tarnish his legacy. She also said the Democratic Party wants to replace Americans with immigrants, a kind of population swap.
Journalist and comedian Greg Gutfeld takes Ingraham’s seat at 10 p.m. He is less controversial than Watters or Ingraham, but said after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, TV stations wanted to emotionally manipulate viewers with images of the war because it would bring in money. For this he himself was criticized by the Fox correspondents. Sean Hannity, also a Trump supporter, keeps the seat at 9 p.m.
From mid-July, the new four-tone Fox News evening program will be Ingraham-Watters-Hannity-Gutfeld, and with a view to the elections in November 2024, on most evenings that probably means nothing more than a four-hour infomercial for Donald Trump. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said the new distribution ensures audiences have access to the “unique perspectives” of this “best-in-class team” for years to come.