When a star of a television show demands a huge salary, it can backfire.
A recent article online talks about a late, late show host I never heard of (who stays up late to watch television? Who watches network or cable TV? It is a dying medium!) has been let go, as his show cost $65 million a year to produce (!!) but made only $45 million in ad revenue. The article is oblique, but it hints that the "star" of the show was given a big pay raise to persuade him to stay on for three more years, and because of this, the show went into the red.
Now you know why Tucker Carlson was fired. As I noted before, it was the Suzanne Somers situation all over again - with a twist. Because Carlson was so toxic, regular advertisers fled. No doubt this meant a drop in ad revenue while at the same time, ratings were going up. Carlson no doubt commanded a huge salary because of the ratings, but it may have been that the show wasn't all that profitable - or was actually a "loss leader" for the network - hoping to keep viewers for the next show in the time slot - and thus make money.
A similar thing happened back in the 1960's with the wave of "country" shows - Petticoat Junction, Hew-Haw, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith - just to name a few. The ratings were great, but advertisers realized that the audience was dirt poor. Hard to sell a Lincoln or an Imperial to an audience whose credit rating was an irrational number. Hard to sell soap products to people who make their own out of bear lard and fireplace ashes - cooked all day in Granny's kettle. So the shows all went off the air almost all at once, not because the ratings were bad, but because the audience was poor - and thus the ad revenue was dropping. Advertisers want bang for their buck.
And let's face it - advertising is a dark science. You put an ad on the radio, television, or internet, and unless your sales double overnight, it is hard to figure out whether your ad was effective. Maybe it kept the brand name in the back of people's minds and thus prevented sales from dropping. That in itself would be an accomplishment. But if the eyeballs you are targeting aren't buying, why bother paying millions to reach them?
You may remember the television show M*A*S*H - which was dreck of the first order. They took a biting piece of social commentary (the movie) and watered it down to a decade of comfort food. Imitation may be the sincerest form of television, but so is repetition. Towards the end of the series, they really cheapened the production values. They went from an amazing outdoor set (which is something of a tourist attraction today, but quite a hike to get to) to an indoor one. Gone were the expensive helicopters bringing in the wounded, replaced with an old school bus painted khakai green.
I mean, if you want to pinpoint the exact moment Hawkeye and company "jumped the shark" it probably was when they made that big switch. A lot of cast members left over time - replaced with less expensive substitutes, no doubt. Writers? Gone - and replaced with hacks who just recycled ten years' worth of plot lines. And I suspect that all this cost-cutting was done in order to accommodate Alan Alda's salary expectations.
Alda later played Maine Senator Ralph Owen Brewester - a real piece of shit. No doubt it was an easy role for Alda to play - Method Acting! He was already immersed in the role.
But getting back to Tucker Carlson (also a real piece of shit) I suspect the same forces were at work. It wasn't his e-mails, or the Dominion litigation (and pending litigation as well). It just came down to money. He wanted a lot of it, based on ratings, but in the end, ratings don't matter as much as profit and loss do. When you pay a star millions, whether it is for a movie or a television show or whatever, that money has to come out of the budget. And often this means cutting back on something else, in order to make things work out. And if the income from the movie or television show is less than expected, well, often the heavy-salaried star is blamed.
It isn't "woke" that is to blame, or some executive with hurt feelies because of an e-mail. It all comes down to dollars and cents. And they know, from experience, that their audience will latch on to the next shiny object they put in front of them. It's like distracting a cat with a laser pointer. They survived losing Beck, Hannity, and now Carlson - and I suspect dollars and cents was the real reason why, in each case.
And this late, late guy? He'll be replaced by some new "talent" who will have stars in his eyes and work for cheap - at least at the beginning. Then, once the ratings come in, he'll get restless, and his agent will tell him to ask for more dough and... the whole process repeats all over again!
Maybe the world just needs fewer superstars and celebrities. We've had enough!
