Nor does it matter much who replaces Tucker Carlson in the 8 p.m. block because the “talent” at the Fox News Channel has never been the star. Glenn Beck wasn’t the star in 2009 when he generated the largest viewership Fox had ever seen in the 5 p.m. hour. Bill O’Reilly, Carlson’s predecessor on the Fox schedule and the previous king of cable news, the subject of a zillion magazine profiles and the instigator of a tubful of moral panics, wasn’t the star, either. Both of them were carried out with the tide to positions of broadcast irrelevance when Fox tired of them, a longitude and latitude Carlson now finds himself in. Perhaps you recall Megyn Kelly, another Fox sensation who hasn’t had much of a career since splitting the network.

What Beck, O’Reilly and Kelly didn’t understand at the time, and what somebody should explain to Carlson this evening, is that Fox itself, which convenes the audience, is the star. And the star maker is whomever network owner Rupert Murdoch has assigned to run the joint. The nighttime hosts, as talented as they are — and Beck, O’Reilly, Kelly and Carlson are among some of the most talented broadcasters to slop the makeup on and speak into the camera — are as replaceable as the members of the bubblegum group the Archies, as interchangeable as the actors who’ve played James Bond, as expendable as the gifted musicians who played lead guitar for the Yardbirds.

[I’m not so sure that’s the case. Beck left on his own to pursue more faith-oriented commentary, and O’Reilly got tangled up in a scandal. Fox’s abrupt termination of Tucker at the top of his ratings presents a much different situation, and may well be received by Fox’s audience as a repudiation of *them* as well as Tucker. I’d say this is unchartered territory. — Ed]