Fox News Channel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fox News Channel | |
|---|---|
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| Launched | 1996-10-07 |
| Owned by | News Corporation |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) (HDTV) |
| Slogan | "We Report. You Decide"; "Fair and Balanced"; "The Most Powerful Name in News" |
| Country | United States |
| Language | American English |
| Broadcast area | United States and others; see "International transmission" section below for other availability |
| Sister channel(s) | Fox Business Network |
| Website | www.foxnews.com |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV | 360 |
| Dish Network | 205 |
| Cable | |
| Available on most US cable systems | Check Local Listings for channels |
| Satellite Radio | |
| Sirius | 131 |
| XM | 121 |
Fox News Channel (FNC) is a United States-based cable and satellite news channel. It is owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, and is a subsidiary of News Corporation. As of January 2005, it is available to 85 million households in the U.S. and further to viewers internationally, broadcasting primarily out of its New York City studios.
The channel was created by Australian-American media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who hired Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. The network was launched on October 7, 1996[1] to 17 million cable subscribers. The network slowly rose to prominence in the late 1990s. In the United States, Fox News Channel is rated as the cable news network with the largest number of regular viewers, although CNN retains a larger number of unique viewers.[2]
Critics and some observers of the channel say that Fox News Channel promotes right-wing or conservative political positions. Fox News Channel and others disagree with allegations of bias in the channel's reporting.
Contents |
[edit] History
Rupert Murdoch claims to have established Fox News to fill what he saw as a niche in the market for news that was "fair and balanced".[citation needed] In the opinion of Ken Auletta of The New Yorker, it was to counter a news media that Murdoch believed was predominantly liberal.[3] Murdoch's company, News Corp, had gained significant experience in the 24-hour news business when its BSkyB subsidiary started Europe's first 24 hour news channel, Sky News, in the United Kingdom back in 1989.
In February 1996, after well-known former Republican political strategist[4] Roger Ailes left America's Talking (now MSNBC), Murdoch called Ailes to start the Fox News Channel. A group of Ailes loyalists who followed him throughout the NBC empire joined him at Fox. From there, the CNBC expatriates, who joined a team already in place at Fox News, created the programming concept and proceeded to select space in New York. Ailes worked individuals through five months of grueling 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before launch, on October 7, 1996.[5]
At launch, only ten million households were able to watch Fox News, with none in the major media markets of New York City and Los Angeles. According to published reports, many media reviewers had to watch the first day's programming at Fox News studios because it was not readily available. The rolling news coverage during the day consisted of 20-minute single topic shows like Fox on Crime or Fox on Politics surrounded by news headlines. Interviews had various facts at the bottom of the screen about the topic or the guest. The flagship newscast at the time was called The Schneider Report, with Mike Schneider giving a fast paced delivery of the news. During the evening, Fox had opinion shows: The O'Reilly Factor (then called The O'Reilly Report), The Crier Report hosted by Catherine Crier, and Hannity & Colmes.
From the beginning, Fox News has placed heavy emphasis on visual presentation. Graphics were designed to be colorful and attention grabbing and to allow people to get the main points of what was being said even if they couldn't hear the host, through the use of on-screen text summarizing the position of the interviewer or speaker and "bullet points" when a host was giving commentary.
Fox News also created the "Fox News Alert," which interrupted regular programming when a breaking news story occurred.
To accelerate its adoption by cable companies, Fox News paid systems up to $11 per subscriber to distribute the network.[6] This contrasted with the normal practice, in which cable operators paid stations carriage fees for the programming of channels. When Time Warner bought out Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting, a federal antitrust consent decree required Time Warner to carry a second all-news channel in addition to Time Warner's own CNN. Time Warner selected MSNBC as the secondary news network, instead of Fox News. Fox News claimed that this violated an agreement to carry Fox News, and Ailes used his connections to persuade Mayor Giuliani to carry Fox News and Bloomberg Television on two underutilized city-owned cable channels, which he did.[7]
New York City also threatened to revoke Time Warner's cable franchise for not carrying FOX News.[8]
A lawsuit was filed by Time Warner against the City of New York claiming undue interference and for inappropriate use of the city's educational channels for commercial programming. News Corporation countered with an antitrust lawsuit against Time Warner for unfairly protecting CNN. This led to an acrimonious battle between Murdoch and Turner, with Turner publicly comparing Murdoch to Adolf Hitler while Murdoch's New York Post ran an editorial questioning Turner's sanity. Giuliani's motives were also questioned, as his then-wife was a producer at Murdoch-owned WNYW-TV. In the end, Time Warner and News Corporation signed a settlement agreement to permit Fox News to be carried on New York City cable system beginning in October 1997, and to all of Time Warner's cable systems by 2001, though Time Warner still does not carry Fox News in all areas.[9] In return, Time Warner was given some rights to News Corporation's satellites in Asia and Europe to distribute Time Warner programming, would receive the normal compensation per subscriber paid to cable operators, and News Corporation would not object to the continuation of Atlanta Braves baseball games being carried on TBS (which could have expired because of the Fox television network's contract with Major League Baseball).
[edit] Fox News HD
On May 1, 2008, Fox News launched a high definition channel simulcast. At this time, Time Warner has agreed to carry this channel in parts of New York and Texas. DirecTV has not indicated when they will begin to carry it.
[edit] Outlets
[edit] Television
Fox News Channel presents a variety of programming with up to 15 hours of live programming per day, in addition to programming and content for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Most of the programs are broadcast from Fox News headquarters in New York City in their street-side studio on Sixth Avenue in the west extension of Rockefeller Center. Audio simulcasts of the channel are aired on XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.
[edit] Online
Like other news networks, Fox News Channel produces a news website featuring the latest coverage, including video clips from the network's television division, audio clips from Fox News Radio, in addition to columns from the network's assorted television, radio, and online personalities. Introduced in December 1995, the network's website ranks below many other news websites, ranking in the lower teens in the list of top news websites. net top 20. Retrieved on 2008-03-17.
FOX News Mobile is a part of the FOX News website that is dedicated to streaming news clips that are formatted for video enabled mobile phones.[10]
[edit] Radio
With the growth of the Fox News Channel, the network introduced a radio division entitled Fox News Radio in 2003. Syndicated throughout the United States, the division provides short newscasts and talk radio programs, featuring personalities from both the television and radio divisions. In addition, the network has also introduced Fox News Talk in 2006, a satellite radio station which features programs syndicated by and featuring Fox News personalities.
[edit] Personalities
Producing a variety of different programming, Fox News Channel has a number of different program hosts, news anchors, correspondents, and contributors which appear throughout daily programing on the network. The network has a number of different signature hosts, including Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, Shepard Smith, and Brit Hume, all of whom host programs which are on the list of the top ten most watched programs on cable news.[11]
[edit] Controversies
[edit] Accusations of political bias
Fox News has been accused of having a bias towards the political right or Republican point of view at the expense of neutrality.[12][13] Fox News, Murdoch, Ailes, and other personalities have denied allegations of bias, Murdoch saying that Fox has "given room to both sides, whereas only one side had it before."[14][15]
[edit] Internal memos
Fox News executives exert a degree of editorial control over the content of their daily reporting. In the case of Fox News, some of this control comes in the form of daily memos issued by Fox News' Vice President of News, John Moody. Critics of Fox News cite these memos as evidence of a clear interest in furthering a conservative agenda.[16]
[edit] Trademark disputes
In 2003, Penguin Books published Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by comedian and Democratic writer Al Franken. The book criticized a number of persons and institutions, but singled out Fox with allegations of conservative bias. Before the book was released, Fox brought a lawsuit, alleging that the book's subtitle violated Fox's trademark on the promotional phrase "Fair and Balanced." On that basis, Fox moved for a preliminary injunction to block the publication of the book. The United States district court judge hearing the case denied the motion, causing Fox to withdraw the suit.
In December 2003, the Independent Media Institute brought a petition before the United States Patent and Trademark Office seeking the cancellation of Fox's trademark of the phrase "Fair & Balanced," on the grounds that is "notoriously misdescriptive."[17] After losing early motions, the IMI withdrew its petition and the USPTO dismissed the case.[18]
[edit] Sensationalist Reporting
Fox News has also been criticised for reporting information which is false. Most recently, Fox News hired Cooper Lawrence, a child psychologist, and Geoff Keighley, host of GameTrailers TV to speak on behalf of the video game Mass Effect's sex scene. Lawrence falsely claimed that the scene was explicit while the current host agreed and did not allow Keighley a proper amount of time to respond. Outrage broke out among the gaming community to the point where Lawrence began receiving poor reviews for her book on Amazon.com.[19] Lawrence later stated that she indeed had never seen the game's scene and apologized, however Fox News did not air the apology.
[edit] Ratings
Fox News leads the cable news market in the United States.[20] The BBC reported that Fox News saw its profits double during the Iraq conflict. By some reports, at the height of the conflict they enjoyed as much as a 300 percent increase in viewership, averaging 3.3 million viewers daily.[21]
In 2004, the gain in ratings became more apparent. In September, Fox News Channel's ratings for its broadcast of the Republican National Convention beat those of all three broadcast networks. During President Bush's address, Fox News notched 7.3 million viewers nationally, while NBC, CBS, and ABC scored ratings of 5.9, 5.0, and 5.1, respectively.
In late 2005 and early 2006, Fox saw a brief decline in ratings. One of the most notable decline in ratings came in the second quarter of 2006, when compared to the previous quarter, Fox News had a loss in viewership for every single primetime program. One of the most noteworthy losses of viewership was that of Special Report with Brit Hume. The show's total viewership was down 19 percent compared to the previous quarter. However, several weeks later, in the wake of the North Korean Missile Crisis and the 2006 Lebanon War, Fox saw a surge in viewership and remained the #1 rated cable news channel.[22][23] Fox still held eight of the ten most-watched nightly cable news shows, with The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes coming in first and second places, respectively.[24]
For the year 2007, Fox News was the number one rated cable news network. It was down 1 percent in total daily viewers and down 3 percent in the 25-54 year old demographic. In comparison, CNN was up 1 percent and 3 percent respectively. Fox News finished 2007 as #6 rated overall cable network.[25]
[edit] International transmission
The Fox News Channel feed is available internationally, however the Fox News Extra segments provide alternate programming.
[edit] Fox News Extra
Initially, US advertisements were replaced on Fox News with viewer e-mail and profiles of Fox News Anchors set to music. In 2002 these were replaced with international weather forecasts. In 2006, the weather segments were replaced with 'Fox News Extra' segments, various narrated reports from FOX Reports on a variety of topics. These reports are generally on lighter issues not related to current news events, and the segments are repeated. International weather forecasts are also shown with the Fox News Extra segments run short.
The Fox News feed in the United Kingdom does not feature Fox News Extra, and instead features break fillers from sister channel Sky News's International Variant. For a short period in 2001, a still of the Fox News logo replaced this other content.
[edit] Australia
In Australia Fox News Channel is broadcast on the three major Pay-TV providers, Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television. Foxtel is 25% owned by News Corporation, with Austar and Optus Television rebroadcasting Foxtel content. The Australian syndication previously featured some local programming, including a John Laws current affairs program in place of part of "Fox & Friends". Local advertisements and promotions are aired in place of every second 'Fox News Extra' segment. Sky News Australia is Fox's sister channel.
[edit] Brazil
Since 2002 Fox News has been broadcast to Brazil, but the commercials are replaced with Fox News Extra. It is broadcast by Sky (satellite operator, a joint-venture between News Corporation and Globosat) and in the digital packages of NET.
[edit] Canada
On December 14, 2000, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved Fox News Canada on behalf of the Global Television Network, for broadcast in Canada. Fox News Canada was to be a domestic Canadian version of Fox News.[26] The channel, or "specialty television service", was never implemented by Fox, and the deadline for commencement of the service expired on November 24, 2004. That same day, a similar license was granted to Rogers Communications for "MSNBC Canada", which went to air in September, 2001. During this period, it was speculated by some, and repeated by Fox News personalities, that the station was being "banned in Canada." The CRTC's previous refusal to grant Fox News an outright license had been contested by some Canadians, as well as American fans of the channel, who believed the decision to be politically motivated. However, it is rare for any American cable network to be licensed in Canada outright.
On November 18, 2004 the CRTC announced that a digital license would be granted to Fox News.[27] In its proposal, Fox News stated, with reference to Fox News Canada, that "Fox News does not intend to implement this service and therefore will not meet the extended deadline to commence operations."[28] On December 16, 2004, Rogers Communications became the first Canadian cable or satellite provider to broadcast Fox News, with other companies following suit within the next several weeks.
[edit] New Zealand
In New Zealand, Fox News is broadcast on Channel 92 of pay satellite operator Sky TV's digital platform. It is also broadcast overnight on New Zealand TV channel Prime, owned by Sky. Fox News parent corporation News Corp has a stake in both Sky and Prime.
[edit] Scandinavia
Between 2003 and 2006, in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, Fox News was broadcast 16 hours a day on TV8, with Fox News Extra segments replacing U.S. advertising. Fox News was replaced by German news channel Deutsche Welle in September 2006.
[edit] United Kingdom
Fox News is also carried in the United Kingdom by the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) satellite television network (Sky Digital), as a sister channel to BSkyB's popular Sky News. Fox News is usually broadcast as a VideoGuard encrypted channel but during major news stories it may be simulcast on Sky Active, which is free to air. As of September 2006 the channel has carried UK specific advertising, along with headlines and weather provided by Sky News during its breaks. These run under the brand of Fox News International.
Fox News and Sky News routinely share bureaus and reporters for breaking news stories from around the world.
[edit] Other countries
Fox News Channel is also carried in more than 40 countries. Although service to Japan stopped in the summer of 2003, it can still be seen on Americable (distributor for American bases),[29] Mediatti (Kadena Air Base),[30] and Pan Global TV Japan.[31]
[edit] Archive and licensing
Fox News Channel maintains an archive of most of its programs. This archive also handles the Fox Movietone newsreels. Licensing of the Fox News archive is handled by ITN Source, the archiving division of Independent Television News.
[edit] See also
- Fox Business Network
- Fox effect
- Sky News (sister channel)
[edit] References
- ^ American Public Media: News Archive for October 7, 1996
- ^ The State of the News Media 2008. Project for Excellence in Journalism (2008-04-27).
- ^ Amy Tübke-Davidson (2003-05-26). "Broadcast News". The New Yorker. Retrieved on May 10, 2007.
- ^ At the new Fox News Channel, the buzzword is fairness, separating news from bias.
- ^ News Corporation: FOX News Channel. News Corporation (2008-04-18). Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
- ^ Richard Katz (1996-05). "Bold grab for subs: Murdoch offers $11 to carry Fox News". BNET. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.
- ^ Giuliani Pressures Time Warner to Transmit a Fox Channel.
- ^ City Hall Threatens Action if Time Warner Rejects Channel.
- ^ "Time-Warner Cable channel list in Mt. Vernon, NY". Time Warner. Retrieved on March, 2006.
- ^ FOX News Mobile website
- ^ April 2007 Weekday Ranker (PDF). TV Newser.
- ^ Timothy Noah, Fox News admits bias!, Slate, 31 May 2005, accessed 26 September 2006
- ^ Dean On President Clinton Standing Up To Right-Wing Propaganda On Fox News Sunday, The Democratic Party, September 25, 2006
- ^ News Corp denies Fox News bias Australian Associated Press, October 26, 2004
- ^ Interview transcript: Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, the Financial Times, October 6, 2006
- ^ 33 internal FOX editorial memos reviewed by MMFA reveal FOX News Channel's inner workings. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Independent Media Institute vs. Fox News Channel on Cancellation of "Fair & Balanced" trademark phrase, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System
- ^ Official Documentation of Petitioned Cancellation of "Fair & Balanced" trademark phrase, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Inquiry System
- ^ Cult of Perfection Review on Amazon
- ^ http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6517290.html Fox News Channel Leads in 2007 Cable News Ratings
- ^ "War coverage lifts News Corp". The British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
- ^ FNC's 25-54 Prime "Downward Spiral", TV Newser
- ^ Cable TV: Content Analysis, The State of the News Media 2005
- ^ April 2005 Competitive Program Ranker (M-F 6a-11p programs), TV Newser
- ^ [1]Fox News Channel Leads in 2007 Cable News Ratings
- ^ Decision CRTC 2000-565 - Registration with CRTC for Fox News Canada. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2004-88 - Requests to add Fox News and NFL Network from the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2004-45 - Call for comments on proposals for the addition of Fox News and NFL Network]. Retrieved on 2007-01-25.
- ^ Americable.
- ^ Mediatti.
- ^ Pan Global TV Japan.
[edit] External links
- FoxNews.com Official PC Site
- FoxNews.mobi Official Mobile Site
- FoxNews.FM Listen Live to Foxnews Radio
- News Corporation - Fox's parent company.
- The Fifth Estate: Sticks and Stones, CBC - Bob McKeown investigates Fox News for The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 45 min.
- Collins, Scott. Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN. ISBN 1-59184-029-5.
- FNC Ratings Soar as War in Lebanon Rages. MediaWeek.
- "Fox's Smith tops cable news ranks in ratings", Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
- "Fox Factor", USA Today.
- Q2 '06: FNC #9 On All Of Cable TV. Media Bistro.
- "NH GOP drops out as fox forum partner", Associated Press.
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