What The Terminations Of Tucker Carlson & Don Lemon Have in Common With PR Agencies
The announcement that Tucker Carlson has parted ways with Fox News came as a surprise, even though for people in our business similar situations are not that uncommon.
Fox announced its parting of the ways with Carlson less than a week after it agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the conservative news network.
For years, Carlson’s show was among the most watched on Fox, and in recent years became the most watch show on the network.
As many people in our business know, what happened to Carlson is not that unusual.
For years, Fox allowed Carlson to sprout untruths about the 2020 election without stopping him because his program made money for the network. It was only after Fox had to cough up $787.5 million that Fox decided on ending its relationship with the extreme right wing demagogue.
Carlson was a star on Fox because he made money for the network. But once he was involved in a lawsuit that cost the network money his star status diminished.
In our business, there are two situations that can be compared to what happened to Carlson, one regarding clients - the other individuals.
The client situation: It’s not unknown, and I personally know of situations where clients were dumped by an agency because another entity in the same category offered the agency a larger budget,
The individual situations: A person can be considered a star at an agency as long as they manage a prestigious large client that makes money for the agency. But when a client decides to part ways with an agency, even though it had nothing to do with the star account supervisor’s wrong doing, the individual’s star status is diminished.
The link between the Carlson and PR agency situations are similar: Individuals are measured by the amount of money they can make for their employers.
Shortly after Fox’s announcement that they were parting ways with their once star performer, CNN announced that one of its once most recognized stars for the past 17 years, Don Lemon, was terminated by the network.
Mr. Lemon had been under fire since early this year after he made remarks about women that were considered sexist.
While the terminations of Carlson and Lemon are for completely different reasons, they too have a common link that many people in our business recognize and those who don’t should: To paraphrase an ancient Wall Street adage: “Past Excellent Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Employment.”
But the termination of Carlson also provides an important lesson for people in our business: If you’re too closely associated with a star, your situation at an agency can be made untenable when the star’s status is diminished. So always lend a helping hand to anyone that requires your help. The person outside of your group that you help today might be tomorrow’s star.
