While Fox News suffered a noticeable drop in its primetime ratings on Monday following Tucker Carlson’s sudden ouster, the damage was far more substantial on Tuesday night. And wannabe Fox rival Newsmax, which has shamelessly made a play for Carlson’s audience after his firing, appeared to be the main beneficiary of angry MAGA viewers flipping the channel. On Tuesday night, Fox News averaged only 1.777 million total viewers and 159,000 in the key primetime advertising demographic of viewers ages 25-54. Last week, when Carlson was still firmly entrenched at 8 p.m., the network brought in a total primetime audience of 2.481 million and 326,000 in the demo. While temporarily replacing Carlson, host Brian Kilmeade pulled in just 1.7 million viewers—almost half of the 3.25 million Carlson averaged last month. Additionally, fellow Fox primetime stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham saw their audiences shrink substantially. Meanwhile, Newsmax’s primetime viewership surged to 425,000 on Tuesday, compared to 129,000 last week and 113,000 average in March. Eric Bolling, the ex-Fox host who anchors the pro-Trump channel’s 8 p.m. slot, more than quadrupled his recent ratings by attracting 562,000 viewers overall.
