Tucker Carlson’s new media company has finally signed its first advertising deal.
The former Fox News host’s company, reportedly named “Last Country,” inked an agreement with conservative shopping app Public Square on Friday, the app’s CEO Michael Seifert told CNBC. The pact is reportedly worth “at least $1 million,” but specific financial details were not revealed.
The agreement follows reporting in July that Public Square was nearing an agreement with Carlson to air ads on his show on the social media platform X. It also comes days before the off-year Election Day and as the 2024 presidential and congressional races are starting to heat up.
Ads from Public Square, also called PublicSq., are set to appear on Carlson’s show starting next month, CNBC reported. The company previously said it plans to roll out its full shopping offerings, some 400,000 products, starting Nov. 1.
Carlson started the online program in July after he was dumped by Fox as the network settled the Dominion Voting Systems case. He has posted a total of 33 episodes, mostly interviews, through Monday, in a somewhat erratic schedule.
It is difficult to tell how much of an audience the ousted Fox host has built: Monday’s episode had 4.1 million “views” on X, but that simply means that it had crossed the path of that many users for at least 2 seconds with at least 50% of the video player in-view, according to X, not that 4.1 million people watched the full 27-minute video.
Nevertheless, Carlson is expected to draw larger and larger audiences as the campaigns gain steam. The ads will also appear on Carlson’s other platforms, including his website, Seifert said.
“People are going to be paying attention,” Seifert told CNBC. “Tucker is going to speak very candidly of the importance of patriotic small businesses and if viewers want to support it, go to Public Square.”
Right now, Carlson’s website hosts only a handful of videos from public events, and sends visitors to X to watch his show. It’s unclear if he will expand viewing opportunities in the future, but last week came news that Last Country, co-founded with Neil Patel, raised $15 million in a seed round of funding led by Omeed Malik’s 1789 Capital.
Malik is a board member of Public Square’s parent, PSQ Holdings.
Patel told CNBC in a statement that he sees the conservative app, which pushes against environmental, social and governance investment policies, acting as a counterweight to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the business-lobbying giant that has been shunned by the right-wing since it supported some Democrats in recent elections, and Amazon, which supports social investing goals and whose founder by Jeff Bezos, also owns The Washington Post.
“PublicSq. is a key company in the parallel economy, specifically countering the Chamber of Commerce and Amazon,” Patel said. “There is a wave of disruption coming to the media and economic establishment, and our companies will help accelerate this overdue shift.”
Public Square earlier this month released preliminary data that said it took in an estimated $2.2 million revenue in the third quarter, representing 1600% year-over-year growth, driven by its EveryLife line of baby products. The company will release full results on Nov. 14.
