Here's an example: Carlson is calling for an invasion of Canada. Think advertisers with business there don't see a potential risk with advertising on his show? They're one grassroots movement away from having to vouch they'll stop advertising on his show. Better to steer clear anyway.
From public response, which is natural risk rooted in public boycott, or from partisan media and org pressure campaigns?
That is the risk instead from relentless MSM pressure, with a not so subtle ultimate threat of media incited mob violence should the media's wishes be ignored for too long?
You might have had a point if the nature of such comments were restricted to Right Wing pundits like Carlson.
The fact is that Left Wing partisans are often at least as extreme, with the difference being that their media orgs work to massage their extremist statements into acceptable discourse.
Discourse that even much of the the Left Wing public increasingly rejects, and yet corporations continue to advertise with these media orgs.
Strictly because there is no threat from the media orgs themselves. It has nothing whatsoever to do with risk of public boycott.
And as we are now witnessing, the only effective boycott that we've seen in decades comes from the Right. There is no evidence that the Left has the organization to widely boycott anything with effectiveness.
You absolutely cannot in any semblance of seriousness say anything remotely equivalent of MSM or left wing media. There's plenty to critique but it's marginal compared to right-wing media. And Elon has aligned himself squarely with the propagandists.
During Covid - a lot of the commentary on MSNBC and CNN were statements along the lines of "those who refuse to get vaccinated should lose their living and be under effective house arrest". Those were definitely not said in jest. They were dead serious. What is your gut feel on multi-national corporations advertising on those cable tv shows? Do you think they quit advertising on those shows in protest? Should they have?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/tucker-carlson-invad...
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2023/02/03/t...
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-calls-for-us-to-i...
> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/tucker-carlson-invad...
> https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2023/02/03/t...
> https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-calls-for-us-to-i...
If you watch the video, it's clearly said in rhetorical jest. Some media outlets don't seem to understand this concept, which is why their hysterics are not taken seriously by many people.
"We are spending all this money to liberate Ukraine from the Russians, why are we not we spending all this money to liberate Canada from Trudeau?"
laughter
"I'm just talking myself into a frenzy here"
That said I am surprised some execs don’t go for him as being in their brand zone.
In fact, I suggest a lot of Tucker fans believe that, and that's partly what's wrong with them.
That said, Tucker does represents a bigger chunk of America than his naysayers would like to admit.
Importantly - it's not fair to say he 'represents' anything. He lies and spins, and says whatever will get him clicks. The SMS releases during the Fox trial very clearly highlighted that they have completely different perspective on-camera than off, and that they are obsessed with both advertiser revenue and throwing red meat to their audience, willing to say things that are completely at odds with reality, and even their own conscience, in order to garner ratings, which has the negative effect of spreading disinformation or lies, such as for example that the 'election was rigged or stolen' - a falsehood which about 1/3 of Americans have come to believe because supposedly legitimate sources such as POTUS and 'News' have been completely corrupted, liked a 3rd world country.
Tucker has morphed into a cross between ranting right wing antagonist, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones - taking the 'Hard Alt' position on basically every issue. The difference is that classical right wing were ultra nationalist, Tucker is Alt Nationalist.
One of the most interesting revelations is the extent to which he embraces the ultra antagonist perspective, even for the smallest inane things - he was doing it behind the scenes, in meetings, with interns, almost like he was practising his shtick.
Note that Tucker didn't used to be like this, and that if you watch Russia One channel right now the main propagandists are uttering some truly fascist stuff on a daily basis (aka 'We should nuke Berlin', or about some government guy 'we should have shot him' etc.) - but almost all of them, less than 20 years ago, would have been considered 'strong reformer liberals'. Even Medvedev was the same - big time liberal reformer - now he's the Tucker of Russia.
It's fake, it's a game.
Finally, they are all playing characters, even Musk, even Linda, it's a matter of the degree to which the character is legit.
Not at all. Until his firing, Tucker Carlson was the most popular pundit in the history of cable news and it wasn't close. Delusion, in fact, is denial of that reality.
>and that's partly what's wrong with them.
And what's the other part?
Instead, consider the possibility that something is wrong with you.
>Importantly - it's not fair to say he 'represents' anything.
Sure it is. You're abusing the words "important" and "fair".
>He lies and spins, and says whatever will get him clicks.
That's your opinion. A massive swath of America would disagree.
>The SMS releases during the Fox trial very clearly highlighted that they have completely different perspective on-camera than off, and that they are obsessed with both advertiser revenue and throwing red meat to their audience, willing to say things that are completely at odds with reality, and even their own conscience, in order to garner ratings,
It is childish to think that any pundit is expressing their unvarnished thoughts.
Second, many people would take issue with the abuse of conjecture in your conclusions.
>which has the negative effect of spreading disinformation or lies,
The Left has zero moral platform from which to lecture anyone about disinformation / lies.
>such as for example that the 'election was rigged or stolen' - a falsehood
Your particular willful(?) naivete incorrectly informs you that the opinion of Americans has to have anything to do with what pundits say.
The reality is that what pundits say or do not say neither has to be the cause nor invalidation of the beliefs of Americans.
Especially in the case of the 2020 election.
In 2020 Americans watched the Left agitate for eight months of election-terrorism riots prior to the election, which resulted in dozens of murders and countless ruined lives. I was personally frightened for the lives of myself and my family.
While Americans, at the same time, watched the Left and their media pull all of the stops, to include destroying peoples lives and "third world" threats, to mandate repressive COVID measures (while still inciting and giving permission to protests that were often truly terrifying riots).
All to the end of people being terrorized, as well as unprecedented election procedure changes that were coupled with widespread anomalies that were bound to be under heavy public scrutiny.
And you wish to blame a lack of credibility in 2020 election integrity on a cable news pundit?
You're out of your mind so as to be completely detached from reality.
Or you are so desperate to memory-hole what actually happened to the United States in 2020, because you understand that the blame lies with the faction whose candidate now sits in the White House, that you can only desperately blame pundits like Carlson and hope that your noise is enough to drown out the past.
Carslon who has only reiterated what a vast portion of Americans saw and thought in 2020.
Like many people who actually or who are otherwise self-forced to willfully misunderstand the nature of Western politics, you think that a pundit like Tucker Carlson is popular because he informs (with lies, in your opinion). And therefore that he is responsible for public opinion, mistaken or not.
This is not true, leaving aside whether or not Carlson is truthful or not.
A pundit like Tucker Carlson is popular because he articulates what a wide swath of the Nation largely already knows to be true.
Especially in the case of the 2020 election, which followed four years of war-footing level propaganda insanity from our institutions against a sitting POTUS.
Distrust in the 2020 election has zero to do with Tucker Carlson. Anyone who is honest understands that and would articulate it.
The widespread lack of trust in the basic method of democracy has everything to do with the fact that, for four years, the Left's very powerful institutions treated the 2016 election, and then the run-up to the 2020 election, like this is not a democracy.
And did so in a very visibly corrupt and eventually in a terroristic manner.
>taking the 'Hard Alt' position on basically every issue. The difference is that classical right wing were ultra nationalist, Tucker is Alt Nationalist.
You lack total perspective on what constitutes the "center", after decades of a media and government assisted successful Leftward march to the extremes. You have no credibility in articulating what constitutes "Alt Right" when the DNC and its media does not inhabit the center Left.
I agree that it's a fake game. The Greeks articulated as much. It isn't a coincidence that Greece is held to be both the origin of democracy and theater.
However, you have adopted the portion of the theatric script that you were supposed to reject in this grand test.
Objectively speaking...
Up until it was canceled, Tucker Carlson was the most watched cable show in U.S. history outside of sports.
Maybe not popular for me, you, your friends, or HN. But by any reasonable measure, he was very popular.
Or to put it more boring, mathematical terms, the mode is not the same as the median. Even if somehow one in three people were huge fans of Carlson, that would still count as relatively niche - and strongly controversial - because that would be the 1/3 most hard right of the US population.
This definition would make eating pizza itself a niche thing, topping or otherwise. 33% of the population is mainstream and it isn't an option to claim otherwise. Less popular? Yes. Fringe? No. Fringe is something like Linux on the desktop at sub-1% of the market. It is not feasible to ignore or marginalise 1 person in 3.
I'm certainly impressed by the position that the most popular show is the fringe one. In theory it is possible, but practically that is a hard sell.
So do you want to cut your customers who like pineapple pizza or your customers who don't like pineapple pizza?
Or... Maybe neither and sell to everyone?
He was one of the most popular cable, non-sports shows (his show and The Five, also on Fox News, swapped to the top spot back and forth recently), but cable-specific shows other than sports are (individually) niche.
If it turns out that Carlson's popularity is so tenuous that the truth of the antecedent in the argument is doubtful, that's great. But the argument is completely bogus regardless.
Radio personalities in 1950 used to get 50 million listeners nightly.
In the 1970's almost everyone watched 'Walter Cronkite'
And as 'old timey' as it seems, 'Network TV' is still much bigger than Cable.
He's the king of a very, very wide field and it's still a narrow audience, and a much more narrow core.
Throw in the negative public bits and the toxic behind the scenes bits and that leaves out a lot of brands.
I can't really see any major brand buying in - not really even a beer or a truck, because there are other parts of the product line they have to protect.
Cars, drugs, consumer apparel, electronics, gas, retail, energy, entertainment, internet/mobile ... seriously which brand is going to go with him? Probably not even Under Armour.
And by the way, in the US advertisers have incredibly influence, and the 'Pillow Guy' who was a major advertiser pulled Tucker into saying things he wouldn't have otherwise said in terms of coverage - which is a serious credibility problem.
I think Tucker is going to be the new Rush Limbaugh - big audience, nice paycheque, influential, but not really mainstream.
https://www.mediamatters.org/murdoch-family/fox-news-wants-m...
Television advertising is a bit less than half the size of internet advertising.
Remember that while democrats are a slight majority (most of the time—right now they’re a slight minority by self-identification) only half of democrats identify as liberal. My mom votes democrat because she’s an immigrant—on race, gender, policing, sexuality, etc. issues she’d be somewhat to the right of Carlson.
Except - Cable News audiences are small, and 25-54 Cable News audience is a tiny fraction of that already small audience, not very representative of much.
'TV' is a minority of viewership: Streaming is now bigger than TV.
'TV News' is a small segment of TV and is mostly a 50+ type of program.
'Cable News' is a small tranche of news, compared to local/broadcast.
'25-54 Cable News' is a small tranche of Cable News.
'Wheel of Fortune' gets considerably more viewers than Tucker - that show is 'mainstream' and is going to reel in advertisers for obvious reasons.
He'll carve out a 'Ruch Limbaugh' type audience on Twitter. In 2005 everyone knew who Rush was, that didn't make him mainstream or appealing to advertisers. I should note that I'm doubtful many even remotely controversial Cable TV personalities are big with advertisers.
Also, maybe notable, is that 'empathy and inclusion' is not going to be generally harmful to ad buyers whereas 'concern and judgement' probably are. I'm not saying one of those ethos has moral superiority, rather, one is just an easier thing to ride a message on.
Look at LinkedIn: it's all 'happy happy happy, you can do it, go for it, that person is amazing' - there's hardly any criticism.
We may be seeing a quiet struggle set up where the views of the advertising execs are so far out of line with mainstream beliefs that it becomes a material issue. There are a few isolated instances right now, so there isn't much to write about, but I'm seeing a trend where previously callous companies are now being somewhat active in rejecting large market opportunities. That is an unusual development that I never expected.
Given what Musk revealed with the Twitter files, there is even a chance it is being coordinated through the government using this "misinformation" engine they're developing.