What's Going on Here, Really?

 Rather than make observations, and posit conclusions, this post will ask a question to which I have no clear answer.

The firing of Tucker Carlson by Fox News has caused quite a stir and speculation as to the reason behind his termination.  Carlson, as an outspoken critic of the Woke, the Left, and the establishment Republicans certainly had a target on his back.  He was the subject of advertiser boycotts, attacked as a racist and a white supremacist, doxxed and physically threatened in restaurants and at his home.  Yet, he anchored the Fox evening lineup, and had a wide and loyal following.  Fox shares were down 5% in the day following the announcement. The 8 p.m. slot for Fox has tanked by two-thirds, dragging the rest of the evening lineup down with it.  The people at Fox had to know that this would be the result.  

Traditionally, most organizations expend a great deal of energy, planning, and resources to hang on to a loyal core customer base and seek to build around it.  Consulting firms, MBA programs, and executives spend innumerable hours developing strategies to cement loyalty among their customers.  Nonprofits—universities, charities, private schools and the like do the same with their donors.

But in the era of Woke, we have seen the opposite behavior.  Companies and nonprofits have demonstrated a willingness to abandon core customers or donors in their quest to display their Wokeness.

What’s going on here?

Tucker Carlson’s abrupt dismissal and the blow to Fox News comes on the heels of the Bud Light debacle as they appointed transgender Dylan Mulvaney as their mascot.  The Anheuser-Busch Brand suffered a 17% loss in revenue and a 21% loss in volume in the wake of the Mulvaney debacle.  Alyssa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s marketing VP has been placed  on leave.  It’s mind boggling to consider this Harvard/Wharton MBA grad did not model out or anticipate the impact this decision would make on sales, the brand, and the company’s stock price, and no one on her staff  warned her off.  

These are irrational business decisions, and similar decisions are being made in board rooms across the country.  The N.F.L. alienated many of its faithful fans by backing Colin Kaepernick.  Many college alumns have stopped writing checks to their alma maters.    The local Catholic high school here allowed their largest donor to walk away over BLM. 

This seems to be irrational organizational behavior to me.  Or is it?  Is the Woke culture so strong that it overwhelms ordinary marketing and finance considerations?  Does it give a license to managers, trustees and boards of directors to abdicate their fiduciary duties to the organizations they are charged with overseeing?   Do they believe that the drop is temporary and that customers and donors will return (as most of the NFL fans did) once the kerfuffle dies down?   Or is something else going on here?  In the corporate world, it’s clear that ESG (on which I will have more to say on a later post) is giving managers an escape hatch to allow them to duck ordinary duties to put profits first.  Are these people making a conscious decision to subordinate their organizations to the demands of Woke or are they just not very capable?  

I have heard different answers from different people on this issue. That brand suicide is becoming more common leads me to believe that simple incompetent planning and strategy is an inadequate explanation.  Something more is going on here.