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Megyn Kelly Being Replaced by Tucker Carlson at Fox

Tucker Carlson is a former co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” and founder of the Daily Caller, a right-leaning news and opinion site.Credit...The Daily Caller

Tucker Carlson, the veteran cable television host and conservative writer, will succeed Megyn Kelly in the coveted 9 p.m. slot on Fox News, solidifying the network’s right-wing identity in prime time as it prepares to cover the administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump.

The move, announced on Thursday, comes just weeks after Mr. Carlson, a former co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” and founder of the Daily Caller, the right-leaning news and opinion site, took over Fox News’s 7 p.m. hour. In that role, he has scored high ratings while generating provocative exchanges with guests that earned traction — and some criticism — online.

Mr. Carlson’s elevation means that Fox News, for the first time in its two-decade history, will have an all-male anchor lineup from 8 to 11 on weeknights, after a year in which the network faced serious questions about its treatment of female employees and in which its chairman, Roger Ailes, was ousted in a sexual harassment scandal.

It also marks a swift conclusion to an anchor sweepstakes that only emerged on Tuesday, when Ms. Kelly, the network’s No. 2 anchor behind Bill O’Reilly, announced that she would be leaving Fox for NBC News, where she planned to host a daytime news show and Sunday newsmagazine. Even senior officials in Fox’s newsroom were startled on Thursday when news of Mr. Carlson’s appointment emerged on The Drudge Report.

Martha MacCallum, co-anchor of Fox News’s morning news show “America’s Newsroom,” is to succeed Mr. Carlson at 7 p.m. Her program, “The First 100 Days,” which begins Jan. 16, will air for the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s administration, with its future to be determined later, network officials said.

Fox’s announcement was the start of a day of musical chairs in the cable-news industry. Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News anchor whose departure last fall opened the door for Mr. Carlson’s return to the nighttime lineup, is joining MSNBC for a daily 6 p.m. show.

Few in the television world might have expected that by week’s end, two of Fox News’s best-known female anchors, Ms. Kelly and Ms. Van Susteren, would end up together at NBC.

The choice of Mr. Carlson to replace Ms. Kelly suggests that any inclination by senior Fox management to temper the network’s conservative ideology — or to place a straight news reporter into its prime-time lineup, as opposed to a right-leaning commentator — may have been quashed by Mr. Trump’s election. Ratings for Sean Hannity, a Trump champion, are up since election day, and Mr. Carlson’s quick success at 7 p.m. suggested that conservative viewers remain a potent force for Fox News, financially and politically.

The Murdoch family, which controls Fox News’s parent, 21st Century Fox, has said publicly that it has no plans to significantly alter the network’s in-house voice in opinion programming. Still, the absence of Ms. Kelly, who became the target of vitriolic criticism from Mr. Trump, removes the Fox News anchor who had most consistently challenged the president-elect during the campaign.

Mr. Carlson, 47, whose father is a former president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, made his reputation as a conservative provocateur, though his style leans more toward William F. Buckley than Andrew Breitbart. Natty and quick-witted, though he has shed his once-signature bow-tie, Mr. Carlson splits his time between preppy enclaves like Georgetown and Maine, and was a magazine writer before turning to television punditry.

He has weathered his share of ignominious career moments, including an on-air dressing-down from the comedian Jon Stewart that led to the cancellation of “Crossfire.” An MSNBC showcase, “Tucker,” was canceled after less than three years, and he later made an ill-fated appearance on ABC’s reality show “Dancing With the Stars,” where he was cut in the first round.

He has also been routinely criticized by liberals and feminist groups for making remarks seen as patronizing or sexist. When his brother, Buckley Carlson, sent an obscene sexist email in 2015 to a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, Tucker Carlson laughed off any concerns. Just last month, he ended a heated exchange with a Teen Vogue writer about politics by encouraging her to “stick to the thigh-high boots,” referring to her magazine’s focus on fashion.

Some left-leaning sites said Mr. Carlson had embarrassed himself; other right-leaning sites said that Mr. Carlson had embarrassed the writer.

Regardless of reception, the segment went viral, and even critics of Fox News concede that Mr. Carlson is skilled as a broadcaster. His 7 p.m. show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” routinely wins its time slot among the younger viewers that advertisers crave and whom Fox News, with its aging overall audience, is particularly keen to attract. In December, Mr. Carlson’s show beat Ms. Kelly’s program among viewers 25 to 54 years old, although Ms. Kelly was off for part of the month.

And even without the combative Mr. Ailes, Fox News remains an organization willing to ignore outside pressures. Hours after Mr. Carlson’s job was announced, the network said that it was awarding its correspondent Jesse Watters a weekly hourlong show on Saturdays. Last year, Mr. Watters used stereotypes about Asian-Americans in a segment filmed in New York City’s Chinatown, earning widespread criticism.

Mr. Carlson was one of several personalities rumored to be in contention for Ms. Kelly’s position, a group that included several female Fox News anchors. One of those anchors, Shannon Bream, will temporarily fill in for Ms. MacCallum in the mornings.

Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox News, said in a prepared statement that “viewers have overwhelmingly responded” to Mr. Carlson. “In less than two months, Tucker has taken cable news by storm,” he wrote.

For her part, Ms. Kelly on Thursday congratulated Mr. Carlson on Twitter, calling him “my friend.”

“This is a great decision by FNC,” Ms. Kelly wrote. “I will be cheering him on!”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Carlson to Take Over Kelly’s Slot at Fox News. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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