Jesse Watters will take over the 8pm slot vacated by Tucker Carlson

Jesse Watters will take over the 8pm prime time rtp slot hari ini on  after Tucker Carlson was fired by the network.

Announced as part of a shuffle that will also see Laura Ingraham shift earlier in the evening and late-night host Greg Gutfeld move up to 10pm, Watters’ will now man the hallowed 8pm slot – left vacant by longtime fixture Carlson back in April.

will also see Ingraham, previously the host of the 10pm hour, kick off the primetime programming block at 7pm.Seasoned commentator Sean Hannity, meanwhile, will keep his old 9pm time, top brass confirmed in a statement.

It comes almost two months to the day that Carlson was days after it paid $787.5million to to settle a defamation suit linked to remarks made on the air by the commentator.

In the time since, rumors swirled as to a possible replacement – with a frontrunner eventually surfacing in 44-year-old Watters, whose rise can be traced back to his days as a production assistant on the O’Reilly Factor when he was just 24, when he gained notoriety as a dogged man-on-the street correspondent.

A combination of quippy, ambush-style interviews and charisma saw Watters’ O’Reilly Segment, years later,  become a full-blown weekly series airing every Saturday, nearly a decade-and-a-half into his O’Reilly tenure.

Carlson similarly rose through the ranks at ‘s news station, before his firing, to become one of the highest-rated anchors on cable TV – prior to suddenly being let go in April after a sterling 14 years.

Suzanne Scott, the network’s CEO, announced Watters would be replacing Carlson in a statement early Monday morning. 

‘Fox News Channel has been America’s destination for news and analysis for more than 21 years and we are thrilled to debut a new lineup,’ Scott, the network’s top exec since 2018, wrote in the bombshell notice.

She added: ‘The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity, and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come.’

Fox’s announcement came as many had pegged Watters to be the clear-cut choice to replace Carlson, given the ratings he commands and the screen presence he exhibits on-set.

His current show, Jesse Watters Primetime, which only began airing last year, currently boasts an average of about 2.6 million viewers a night, while his longrunning Saturday show, Watters’ World, drew in 1.9 million viewers before being pulled in 2022.

By comparison, Carlson’s stint was just as – with the talking head currently one of the key faces of  politics – but also riddled with controversy, thanks to the 53-year-old’s opinionated, oft-polarizing commentary.

That said, Fox News has remained the number one network in primetime and total day across the board, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Moreover, Watters, a staunch conservative from Philadelphia, is also a vehement supporter of ex-president Donald Trump, the man whose presidential run helped make Carlson a household name.

That, along with Watters’ apparent loyalty to the network who made him a star himself, makes him the clear candidate to address flailing ratings seen since Carlson’s shock departure – after which .

Following Carlson’s firing, Fox News brought in an average of 1.598million total viewers between the 8-11pm hours – numbers that have continued to languish in the span since.

Meanwhile, longtime rival MSNBC beat out its competitors with an average of 1.693million total viewers – as well as 176,000 in the key 25-54 age demographic.

In addition to his high-rated prime time duties, Waters also hosts Fox’s panel-style program The Five – where he appears alongside fellow network personalities Gutfeld, Dana Perino and Judge Jeanine Pirro.It is assumed he will continue to retain those duties while serving as the new 8pm hour host.

Carlson’s ouster came days after Fox were forced the fork over a historic $787million settlement to a voting hardware firm over claims the anchor and other network hosts spread lies about its machines during the 2020 election.

The suit was filed back in March 2021 – at the height of Carlson’s success – and specifically singled out statements made on air by the TV talker, as well as Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo. 

During discovery for the case, multiple text messages sent by Carlson to colleagues over the course of the 2020 election were made public, reportedly embarrassing the network to no end

Sent to colleagues such as Laura Ingraham, they revealed how Carlson secretly despised Donald Trump behind the scenes – despite praising the then-president, whose win helped propel his success, in public. 

One sent on November 5 of that year – days after Joe Biden was declared victorious  – seemed to show Carlson realizing a Trump loss could spell trouble for the network, given how heavily he had leaned on the politician over the past several years.

 ‘He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong,’ Carlson wrote about Trump in one of many startling text messages obtained by the voting firm – which claimed in court that the correspondence served as proof he knowingly spreading false information. 

On November 17, Carlson griped about attorney and frequent Fox guest Sidney Powell for pushing the voter fraud conspiracy – despite seemingly agreeing with the theory himself several times on the air.

‘Sidney Powell is lying.F***ing bitch,’ he wrote.

A day later, in a message to Ingraham, Carlson elaborated, ‘Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.’

Then, after the insurrection on January 6, Carlson took aim at the ex-president himself, saying he could not wait for him to be out of office – and more importantly, out of news headlines

‘We are very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,’ Carlson wrote in one message.’I truly can’t wait.’

He added: ‘I hate him passionately.’

The messages, attorneys hired by the Toronto based voting firm said, served as proof that Carlson and others knowingly spread false information that their machines played a part in Biden’s win.

After a jury was selected, and after Fox had promised a high-powered, bitter court battle, the network inexplicably backed down, agreeing to fork over the largest civil settlement in history.

The move puzzled many who thought Fox would never have backed down from a fight when it came to their lucrative golden boy – who technically is still under contract.

Earlier this month, the network touted this arrangement after brass threatened to sue Tucker Carlson for violating his contract – though the launch of a low-budget  show that was quickly watched by more than 80million people.

In a letter obtained , lawyers for the media giant are said to have sent official correspondence to Carlson’s legal team claiming the newscaster was ‘in breach’ of his contract when he aired his new Twitter show Tuesday night.

Carlson’s lawyers reportedly argued any legal action by Fox would be a direct violation of their client’s First Amendment rights, as the newscaster is said to be looking for a way out of a $20million-a-year contract with the company.

When , with no official reason given for why the company let their most-watched anchor go.The aforementioned contract has prevented him from taking work at competing networks.

In the statement to Axios, Carlson’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, accused Fox brass of engaging in hypocrisy by silencing Carlson, pointing to how the company claims to ‘defend its very existence on freedom of speech grounds.’

That said, Carlson’s firing reportedly came as a direct order from Rupert Murdoch, according to sources cited by The Los Angeles Times, and was executed by his son, Lachlan. 

An insider at the network told DailyMail.com: ‘Tucker still hasn’t been given any indication of why he was taken off the air.His producer Justin Wells was ousted too.

‘We believe Rupert wants to sell the company and it’s harder to find an institutional buyer with Tucker as the main star. Tucker gone makes it more of an appealing media company to buy.’

Fox, however, did not give any reason for the departure of their most-watched news anchor.

An explanatory statement at the time read: ‘Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.

‘We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.’