Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has lost at least 20 advertisers over remarks last Thursday that immigration has made the United States “poorer and dirtier and more divided,” is just the latest target of a tactic that has come to define media in 2018: the coordinated sponsor boycott.
While the number of advertiser boycotts has escalated this year — with stars ranging from Carlson’s Fox News colleagues Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity to TBS’ Samantha Bee singled out by opponents — networks and sponsors alike have been able to ride out the wave of bad publicity without any lasting damage to either viewership or the bottom line.