What Maria Bartiromo’s Exit Says About Fox’s Star-Making Machine | Analysis

Maria Bartiromo is hardly the first Fox personality to leave the network with a powerful brand of her own. Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly all left Fox as major television personalities, with varying degrees of post-Fox success. Yet their departures revealed something about the institution they left behind: None proved indispensable to it. That history gives Bartiromo’s sudden departure last week significance beyond the question of who replaces her. After 12 1/2 years hosting programs across Fox News and Fox Business, Bartiromo now joins a group of personalities whose next acts offer a test of where the power of a Fox superstar ends and the power of the Fox brand begins. Fox announced Sept. 3 that Bartiromo was “no longer with Fox News Media,” later describing the move as a “business decision.” Her attorney Bryan Freedman has disputed reports that she was fired or is no longer a Fox employee. Bartiromo is different from some of her predecessors. She arrived at Fox as an established television star after two decades at CNBC and divided her time between financial news and conservative political programming. But during her Fox tenure, she became deeply identified with the network and its audience and found herself among Trump’s inner circle of beloved media figures. Fox has seen that position become extraordinarily powerful before. O’Reilly was cable news’ highest-rated host when Fox ousted him in 2017, with “The O’Reilly Factor” averaging more than 4 million viewers during his final full quarter. TheWrap asked at the time whether Fox News could survive without him. It did just fine. O’Reilly built an independent subscription and digital business, although he has been out of the public discourse for a while. Fox, meanwhile, moved Carlson into his 8 p.m. hour. Carlson eventually became one of Fox’s biggest stars. His own departure in April 2023 demonstrated that Fox’s stars genuinely matter: Ratings in his former 8 p.m. hour fell roughly 50% during the first three weeks without him. And Carlson hardly disappeared. He launched his own media company, built a sizable online audience and retained significant influence in conservative politics even as, like O’Reilly, he’s largely been relegated to the fringes of the right. Fox ultimately installed Jesse Watters at 8 p.m. and remained atop cable news. Kelly followed a different path after voluntarily leaving Fox for NBC in 2017. Following the end of her NBC tenure, she built an independent podcast and digital business that has given her a substantial platform outside traditional television. Taken together, their trajectories complicate any notion that the power flows entirely in one direction. Leaving Fox did not consign its biggest stars to irrelevance; in some cases, independence gave them greater freedom to build businesses around themselves. But Fox prospered without them, too. That is the distinction Bartiromo’s next act could put into sharper relief. The network’s advantage isn’t that its stars don’t matter; Carlson’s immediate ratings impact demonstrated otherwise. It is that no personality has yet proved irreplaceable over the long term. Bartiromo could build a lucrative new platform and bring a sizable audience with her. Her stature before Fox may give her advantages some other Fox personalities didn’t have. Fox’s history nevertheless points to a recurring distinction between its biggest personalities and the institution behind them. Its stars can leave with their fame, audiences and earning power intact. Fox retains the platform — and, so far, the ability to elevate someone else. That may ultimately be the more revealing legacy of Fox’s star system. It has promoted personalities powerful enough to thrive without the network, but none has yet proved bigger than it.