Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, has made a strategic purchase that brings it closer to two of its former top hosts, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. By acquiring Red Seat Ventures, a media company that provides services to both Carlson and Kelly, Fox has found a way to reestablish ties with the popular conservative figures without bringing them back directly under its news division.
The acquisition comes after Fox News has spent years distancing itself from its once-loyal conservative audience. The network was widely criticized for enforcing a vaccine mandate on its New York employees, prematurely calling Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, and largely ignoring concerns about election irregularities. Those decisions, combined with the ousting of Carlson in 2023, led many viewers to abandon the network.
Red Seat Ventures, which manages digital content and branding for high-profile figures, will now operate within Fox’s Tubi Media Group. While Carlson and Kelly are not rejoining Fox as employees, their continued connection to the network through Red Seat suggests that Fox is attempting to recover some of the influence it lost after alienating its core audience.
Carlson was forced out of Fox News in 2023 under circumstances that remain murky. Reports surfaced that his departure was linked to Fox’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, though both the network and Dominion denied that claim. Kelly, meanwhile, left Fox on her own terms in 2017, later citing the toxic political environment and a desire to move away from prime-time cable news.
With the acquisition of Red Seat Ventures, Fox is signaling that it understands the power of independent conservative media. However, whether conservative viewers will trust the network again after its vaccine mandate and handling of the 2020 election remains an open question.
