Did the TV network ABC sign a $400 million deal to give former Fox News host Tucker Carlson a late-night show that would replace current ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel? No, that's not true: The claim is from an online article labeled "Parody News," with a headline that said "SATIRE." A representative for ABC told Lead Stories the claim was false. The website that originally posted the claim has a disclaimer that says it cannot guarantee "the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information."
The claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on September 2, 2024. The caption read:
ABC Inks $400 Million Deal with Tucker Carlson for Late-Night Show, Replacing Jimmy Kimmel
Read here : https://hizep.com/bf6e0cfxvn
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing of this fact check:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Sep 6 15:51:01 2024 UTC)
The image with the post had a watermark in the upper left corner that read "RATED SATIRE."
Lead Stories contacted ABC about the post's claim. A network representative wrote in a September 6, 2024, email:
... this information is false.
Clicking on the link in the post's caption leads to an article (archived here) with more detail about the claim. Above the article's headline, in a blue box, were the words "Parody News." The website where this article appeared, Hizep.com, has a disclaimer that reads in part:
Hizep does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information.
A Google search (archived here) found that the earliest version of this claim came from SpaceXMania (archived here), which published it on July 16, 2024. Above the headline is a "SATIRE" label. SpaceXMania's disclaimer contained the same line Hizep.com used:
SpaceXMania does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information.
Reuters and Snopes have also fact checked this claim.
More Lead Stories fact checks of SpaceXMania content can be read here. Other Lead Stories fact checks that mention Tucker Carlson can be found here.
