FOX has accused its former star host, Tucker Carlson, of violating his contract and ordered him to stop posting videos on Twitter, in response to his new Tucker on Twitter show, Axios reported.
After Fox parted ways with the political commentator in April, Carlson announced he would be taking his popular show Tucker Carlson Tonight to Twitter. In his first episode, which received 117 million views and 928,000 likes, Carlson spent 10 minutes monologuing about distrust in the media, UFOs and the war between Russia and Ukraine—which is similar to his Tucker Carlson Tonight content.
After the first episode, Fox notified Carlson he was in breach of his contract, according to Axios. After the second episode, the company sent a cease-and-desist letter. Carlson posted a third episode yesterday (June 13), suggesting he has no intention of playing by Fox’s rules. The dispute is already transpiring on a public stage, and it could end with the parties duking it out in the courts. Neither Fox nor Carlson immediately responded to requests for comment.
Carlson claims it is his First Amendment right to share his opinions on social media, according to Axios. But that argument might not be strong enough to win in court, lawyer Peter Rahbar told Observer. Rahbar has been an employment lawyer for more than 20 years, including more than 10 as the chief labor and employment lawyer for Hearst. He has worked for six years at his own law firm,
Observer spoke with
Observer: What’s going on between Fox and Tucker Carlson in regards to his contract?
Rahbar: There was an announcement that Fox was parting ways with Tucker Carlson, which is an important distinction. They didn’t say he was terminated. They elected to exercise a clause in most of these contracts for TV personalities that says, “As long as we pay you during the term of the contract”—and his contract apparently goes through January of 2025— “as long as we pay you through January 2025, we don’t have to put you on the air, and you can’t work for anyone else.”
Tucker Carlson is desperate to get back on air. He doesn’t want to abide by the contract. What it appears he is doing is knowingly violating his contract by broadcasting his show on Twitter. And he’s challenging Fox to do something about it. Behind the scenes, it means he tried to negotiate an exit, and it didn’t work. He’s trying to put pressure on Fox to come to the table, and Fox isn’t doing it. I assume the next step in these matters, if he doesn’t stop, is probably going to be Fox suing for an injunction.
For Fox, this is a battle to protect their contracts. And for Carlson, this is a battle to protect his relevance.
When you say he can’t work for anyone else—that includes working for himself?
He can’t put together a broadcast and distribute it over any medium. That’s the contract language we’ve seen. It doesn’t matter whether he’s doing it for himself or for others. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on Twitter or on another network. What he’s doing and what he’s done—and if I were his advisor, I would not go down this path—he’s put basically the same show minus guests on Twitter. The location is different, the logo in the corner of the screen is different, but the monologue is essentially the same. He’s putting an identical product on a different medium, and that’s explicitly prohibited.
His show isn’t making any advertising money right now, and it’s not making subscription revenue. How might that complicate things?
He’s signaled that he’s going to have guests, and I would assume advertisers would come behind that. The “Tucker on Twitter” logo may be replaced by a “My Pillow” logo in a few weeks for all we know, and that’s an advertiser that was previously at Fox, so that would present an additional layer of problems. Fox could say, “Hey, we’re damaged. This was our advertiser.” He’s made it very easy for Fox. I mean, he is just absolutely thumbing his nose at this contract and daring them to sue him.
What are your thoughts on the situation?
I’m not surprised by it at all. It seems like he was blindsided by Fox’s decision. Here we are in an important presidential election cycle, and he is—like him or not—one of the foremost political commentators in our country, being told he can’t appear on-air anywhere. That is fatal to a media personality.
His arguments are the First Amendment and that the audience isn’t being served. Courts aren’t going to care about that.
Is there any precedent in New York courts for this?
New York courts have a long history with enforcing entertainment and broadcasting contracts, whether it was live performers back in the day or Broadway performers, TV personalities, musicians or social media personalities. There is a procedure—it’s called a negative injunction—which Fox, if they were to go to court, would apply for. Just from a practical perspective, the case law is there and the industry practice is there. And most TV personalities don’t have the leverage that Tucker Carlson has, and so they follow these contracts. This is accepted in the industry.
You don’t see anybody in the industry coming up and supporting him, and you don’t see any other company lining up behind him, because they know he has the losing argument. If he is able to achieve a resolution, I’m sure he’ll have 10 companies ready to sign him up, but no one’s going to get involved right now. Even Elon Musk was smart enough to say, “Hey, we don’t have a contract,” because he doesn’t want to get pulled into it.
I find this all very amusing.
It’s resonating with people for different reasons. Certainly the media is fascinated with it. Of course his followers want him back, and we’ll see how long that lasts. But there’s a movement of rising employee activism as well—employees who want the power to work where they want—and Tucker Carlson is one of them. If Fox lets him go wherever he wants to go, then what’s to stop the next Fox personality from doing the same? Fox has to have this fight, because if Carlson blows up his contract, they could lose, potentially, all their talent who wanted to do the same thing. It’s also interesting because he doesn’t have the winning argument, and he’s doing everything he can to build some sentiment on his side, but I don’t think he’s really winning on that front either.
One other unique thing is that neither side cares about the money. For Fox, it’s about the contract. For him, it’s reputation. He can make money anywhere after he is able to move on, but every day he sits on the sideline, that potentially erodes. There’s a lot of money involved, but no one cares.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
