Commentary

'Tucker Carlson' Has Some Targeted TV Advertising For Us - We're Ready For The Facts

Casual TV viewing mixed with some eye-opening marketing might have been absorbed by viewers on Monday when watching MSNBC's coverage of a New York Times investigative story about Fox News Channel's daily prime-time show "Tucker Carlson."

While viewing MSNBC, which was covering the story about The New York Times' analysis of the "Tucker Carlson" show, TV Watch needed some time to digest the information -- and paused the live MSNBC video.

Targeted advertising was delivered onscreen to TV Watch from a big cable news TV network. Guess which one?

A display ad for Fox Nation's “Tucker Carlson Today” popped up on a DirecTV connected TV set.

This was followed by ads for other Fox Nation shows and then a free-trial offer. TV marketing is a wonderful thing.

The New York Times story analyzed 1,150 “Tucker Carlson Tonight” airings of the show since 2016, and found out basically what sells for that show: Fear and conspiracy.

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In that regard, it's a success with the Monday through Friday prime-time news show at the top of the news TV heap -- around 3.4 million Nielsen-measured viewers a night, at last reading.

America likes a good prime-time story. In journalistic lingo, the show is "opinion." The facts? Well, sometimes there are facts in that newscast. But many might call other content on the show "alternative facts."

"You can fact-check that show all day -- and not do anything else," says New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore, who wrote the story, speaking on MSNBC on Monday.

Well, who wants to do that?

Lots of Carlson's content can be focused on “white people,” the Times says, who are under attack from potential or existing immigrants -- the “ruling class,” Democrats, and others less deserving people.

Carlson also gets more targeted in his messaging, says the Times, using the words like "they" and "you" as in "they want to replace you" or "they want to control you."

Advertising soars as a result. The latest reading from iSpot.TV for May 2021 to May 2022, shows the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show pulling in $165.7 million in national TV advertising. A similar year-before period tallied $195 million.

Looks good -- but still, very little of this business is from major TV brand advertisers. Many existing TV brands on the show include direct-first and direct-response advertisers -- herbal supplement and pillow manufacturers

Top brands year-over-year include My Pillow, Balance of Nature, Relief Factor, Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and Nutrisystem.

Freedom of speech is a good thing. Consumers need to decide for themselves what is true, false, and everything in between. Now comes the tough part: You need to get to work here to do this -- that is, unless you have real work to do, like taking care of your family and doing the necessary things to live.

So leaving news-gathering to the professionals might be the way to go.

Will you get this on Fox News Channel prime-time opinionated programming from the likes of Carlson? I'm sure it's there.

In the meantime, be happy if you get some targeted advertising from your favorite TV news program. It's nice to be noticed.

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