Fox News host Tucker Carlson has yet again inflicted a financial hit on his own team thanks to his incendiary and seemingly purposfully antagonistic racism. Following his latest outrageous commentary about the recent nationwide protests against police brutality, which he referred to as “Black Lives Matter riots,” both Disney and T-Mobile — neither of which are exactly small companies — have permanently pulled their ads from Carlson’s show.
An ABC spokesperson said that the Disney ads placed on the show weren’t the company’s own doing in the first place. They blamed a third-party who’d been tasked with buying ads for the company, explaining:
‘The ABC advertisements were placed on the show without our knowledge by third party media buyers who were unaware that we do not advertise on the show, and they have now been notified not to place any further ads.’
Internally, Disney has been working to insist upon its commitment to hearing black voices amidst the national outcry over police brutality that frequently targets black Americans. In an internal memo, Disney execs insisted:
‘We also realize that now more than ever is the time for us all to further strengthen our commitment to diversity and inclusion everywhere. We intend to keep the conversation going, not just today, but for as long as it takes to bring about real change.’
Meanwhile, T-Mobile issued the statement:
‘We haven’t run ads on Tucker Carlson Tonight since early May and have cancelled all future placements. We will continue to support those who stand against racial injustice.’
Asked directly whether Carlson’s racism would be the kind of thing that his company supports, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said:
‘It definitely is not. Bye-bye Tucker Carlson! #BlackLivesMatter‘
It definitely is not. Bye-bye Tucker Carlson! #BlackLivesMatter
— Mike Sievert (@MikeSievert) June 10, 2020
In 2018, over 20 advertisers cut ties with Carlson’s show after he went on a particularly brazenly racist rant against undocumented immigrants. Now, Carlson’s show has actually been left with a laughably large portion of his ads dedicated to the MyPillow company, which is led by a Trump supporter, Mike Lindell. Over a period of about three months, MyPillow accounted for a whopping 41 percent of the ads on Carlson’s show.
I analyzed 3 months of Tucker Carlson's advertising. Th data shows just how few are companies willing advertise on the show.
During this period, there were a total of 745 minutes of ads.
MyPillow: 302 mins
All Others Combined: 443 minsHe's essentially a 1 advertiser show. pic.twitter.com/PEcSPt6YrN
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) June 11, 2020
Carlson, of course, doesn’t seem at all fazed by any backlash. On Wednesday’s edition of his show, he denounced the “racist lunatics with semiautomatic weapons” who supposedly want to enact segregation in the U.S. That is an outrageously incorrect description of the recent crowds of peaceful protesters, although it does describe Michigan residents who stormed their state capitol not too long ago in protest of their state’s Coronavirus-induced lockdown orders. Trump called those protesters “very good people,” and Carlson doesn’t seem to have had any condemnation for those actually armed demonstrators.
Amidst the crisis of police brutality, Carlson is not the only one who’s tried to fearmonger about the peaceful protesters. Trump himself has consistently claimed that the protesters pose some kind of existential threat to the United States. However, he has made up this threat in order to use it as an excuse to harass protesters whose message he does not care about.
