Former Fox host Tucker Carlson launches his own paid streaming service

Tucker Carlson is back at it. The controversial former star host of Fox News, not satisfied with his videos on social media, has decided to launch his own subscription streaming service, Tucker Carlson Network, TCN. “The corporate media lied too much, and it killed them,” he says in the video presenting his new channel.

Carlson launched the new medium on Monday. A subscription costs $9 per month, although the price drops to $6 per month for an annual subscription ($72 in total). Carlson promises to give his subscribers “the unadorned truth.” Some content is offered for free on his website, where he recycles what he has published on X, formerly Twitter.

The network’s streaming service has various formats, but they all revolve around the former Fox News host, who claims that the team he had at the Fox network has joined him in the new project. The names of the different segments make it clear that Carlson is the main selling point of the platform. “The Tucker Carlson Encounter” is long conversations with guests. “The Tucker Carlson Interview” are question-answer interviews. In “After The Tucker Carlson Interview,” the host shares his opinions on his most important interviews and provides some behind-the-scenes content. “Tucker Carlson Uncensored” will be similar to the opening monologue he had on his Fox News show, while “Tucker Carlson Films” will produce documentaries like those he made for the online service Fox Nation, including the controversial film that questioned whether the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was violent. There will also be a segment with audience participation called “Ask Tucker.”

The former Fox News host was fired in April following the network’s out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a defamation trial. Carlson was one of the presenters who falsely alleged that there was voter fraud in the 2020 presidential elections. But internal messages and communications revealed that the Fox presenters and executives did not believe the false allegations they were promoting. Fox News reached a $787.5 million agreement to compensate Dominion and avoid trial.

Following his dismissal, Carlson launched an interview program on Twitter, in which he has spoken mainly with far-right politicians. He interviewed former president Donald Trump, who was counterprogramming the first debate of the Republican presidential primary candidates. Viktor Orbán, president of Hungary, appeared on his show; as did Javier Milei, before becoming president of Argentina; Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene; conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; and Santiago Abascal, the leader of the Spanish far-right party Vox, whom he went to interview in Madrid. Carlson has also spoken to fringe figures who have spread conspiracy theories of all kinds.

The Wall Street Journal, controlled like Fox by the Murdochs, published that Tucker Carlson had an annual salary of $20 million at Fox News. According to the newspaper, the presenter accused the network of breach of contract after his dismissal through a letter that seemed to be a prelude to legal action. The host’s contract lasted until January 2025 and the network intended to continue paying his salary to prevent him from signing for another channel.

Carlson’s new venture comes more than seven months after he was fired by Fox with little explanation. Lachlan Murdoch, the head of the company, presented it as just another programming adjustment. “It really is one of those mysteries that I will probably never get to the bottom of,” Carlson said Monday in an interview for The Megyn Kelly Show podcast, according to AP.

Promises and conspiracy theories

Despite being known for spreading lies and twisting reality, Carlson presents himself as a champion of democracy and criticizes all other media. “News coverage in the West has become a tool of repression and control. Reporters no longer reveal essential information to the public; they work to hide it. Journalists act as censors on behalf of entrenched power. They have contempt for the public. They hate the truth,” says the Tucker Carlson Network.

Yet his website features an interview with Alex Jones, who was sentenced to pay nearly $1.5 billion in several defamation lawsuits for falsely claiming that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School — a tragedy that cost the lives of 20 children and six teachers — was a hoax. Jones falsely argued that it was a dramatization to achieve stricter gun regulation. Parents of the victims were threatened and harassed by those who believed the lies that they had staged the shooting.

On his website, Carlson continues his attacks on traditional media, arguing “democracy can’t function in a society like this.” “Voters can’t know what they’re voting for. People do understand they’re being manipulated, and they resent it. The population becomes angry and paranoid,” the Tucker Carlson Network states.

The streaming service also includes an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who dropped out of the race to win the Democratic Party nomination and is running for president as an independent. The presidential hopeful claims that Vladimir Putin is “acting in good faith” in the war against Ukraine; that HIV was manufactured so that corporations could sell drugs to treat AIDS; that vaccines cause autism; that Prozac is responsible for mass shootings in U.S. schools; that Wi-Fi radio frequency signals can cause cancer; that chemicals in water make children transgender, and that Chinese people and Jews are immune to Covid-19.

“There’s only one solution to a propaganda spiral like the one we’re living through, and it’s telling the truth about the things that matter — clearly and without fear. That’s our job. We plan to do it every day, no matter what,” Carlson continues on his website.

In addition to Trump, who falsely argues that the 2020 elections were stolen from him, Carlson has also interviewed Vivek Ramaswamy, a climate change denier, who is also seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Ramaswamy has defended far-right conspiracy theories, casting doubt on the investigations into the September 11 attack, suggesting that the assault on the Capitol was staged and subscribing to the theory of the great replacement, which maintains that immigration policies are specifically designed to dilute the political power of white Americans.

All this content is now available on the Tucker Carlson Network.

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