FOX News
From Wikinfo
The FOX News Channel is a 24-hour news channel launched in 1996 on United States cable and satellite networks as well as in syndication. It is available to 80 million subscribers in the U.S. and broadcasts primarily out of its studios in New York City.
Launched on October 7, 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers, the nascent network quickly rose to prominence in the late 1990s as it started taking market share away from the Cable News Network (CNN). It has since surpassed CNN to become the number one news channel in the United States (FOX News also competes with the third-place cable news channel, MSNBC). FOX News Channel asserts that it is less biased and more factual than other American networks, using promotional statements such as "fair and balanced" and "we report, you decide". Their commentators argue that other news channels are dominated by a liberal bias.
The FOX News Channel was launched just three months after MSNBC went on the air. Even though they began broadcasting around the same time, FOX News has attracted a large and growing viewership, while MSNBC remains mired in a distant third place among the three U.S. cable news channels.
Like the rest of FOX, it is owned by Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is a sister channel to Sky News, which is based in the United Kingdom.
The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes, formerly a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan. Previously, Ailes ran the CNBC network for the NBC network and produced campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates. His work for former President Richard M. Nixon was chronicled in the book The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss. Managing editor Brit Hume is a contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard.
Several FOX News anchors have expressedly partisan conservative backgrounds. Daytime anchor David Asman previously worked at the conservative The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank. Sunday host Tony Snow is a conservative columnist and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration.
FOX News on Television
Every hour from 9AM to 3PM Eastern Time, the FOX News Channel broadcasts Fox News Live providing a wide-ranging assortment of hard news, guest analysts, and interviews. In primetime, the network presents a slew of personality-driven news-talk shows such as Special Report With Brit Hume, hosted by political reporter Brit Hume from Washington, D.C.. The network bills The Fox Report With Shepard Smith as the signature evening newscast, offering various reports on the day's events hosted by Shepard Smith. The network's top-rated show is The O'Reilly Factor, hosted by the opinionated journalist Bill O'Reilly who has declared his show a "no spin zone." In addition, conservative Sean Hannity and moderate-to-liberal Alan Colmes, both radio talk show hosts, debate political issues of the day on Hannity & Colmes.
The network syndicates Fox News Sunday hosted by Tony Snow to Fox Network affiliates across the United States. From time to time, FOX News also produces a newsmagazine show for its Fox affiliates called The Pulse.
The channel is now available internationally, but unlike CNN's international service it tends to concentrate on domestic issues which might be seen as less newsworthy outside North America.
External links
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Fox News" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News December 21, 2003
