The Murdoch Boys and the Future of Fox News

[Old Warrior in Exile]

June 12, 2017
The Murdoch Boys and the Future of Fox News
By Peter Barry Chowka

The Fake News-inspired perception that existential problems are enveloping the Trump Administration is expanding and deepening. As this questionable meme takes hold, it appears that the current toxic political climate is drawing more anti-Trump viewers to the partisan attack “resistance” programs that are playing out nightly on two of the three cable television news channels. Meanwhile, the new ratings war among the three 24/7 cable news outlets is settling into an ongoing war of attrition.

In recent weeks, the Fox News Channel (FNC), considered the most friendly to President Trump, has lost the commanding ratings lead that it held for the past decade and a half. On most – but not all – weeknights now, FNC is coming in second or third to MSNBC in prime time when the preferred demographic or “the demo” (viewers between the ages of 25 and 54) is the metric. The other anti-Trump channel, CNN, has seen its ratings rise, too, and occasionally it wins an hour or two in prime time. With the future of FNC’s iconic conservative program Hannity in doubt, the outlook for Fox News is, at best, increasingly uncertain.

The rewards for the winner of the cable news wars are substantial. According to a 2015 New York Times Magazine profile of Fox News anchor-star Megyn Kelly, who has since jumped to NBC, “During a 10-year span, Fox News’s profits grew six-fold to $1.2 billion in 2014, on total operating revenue of $2 billion, according to the financial analysis firm SNL Kagan.” On April 20, 2017, the Hollywood Reporter noted that 20 percent of the profits for 21st Century Fox in 2016 came from Fox News, “the biggest-earning division in the company.”

The unprecedented success of the Fox News Channel is accountable to billionaire international media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who bankrolled the effort, and Roger Ailes (1940-2017), the legendary TV producer, political consultant, and all around media genius. Ted Turner, the founder of CNN in 1980 and another larger than life personality, believed that “the news is the star.” Ailes discovered and nurtured personalities – attractive ones, at that – and made them the stars of his channel. (Ailes’s 1987 book on how to achieve success is titled You Are The Message: Secrets of the Mass Communicators.) This ethos had a profound impact on the other news channels, which, like FNC, are also now largely personality driven.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/06/the_murdoch_boys_and_the_future_of_fox_news_.html

[Suppressed]

The Trump phenomenon leaves a path of destruction.

[DCPatriot]

The Trump phenomenon leaves a path of destruction.

You guyz can't have it both ways.

If 'you' can claim that anybody would have beaten Hillary Clinton, we'd be in the same place today.

The Murdochs are blowing up FOXNEWS because they're Conservative....they're #1.

President Trump has absolutely nothing to do with it.    It'd be the same with 'President' Cruz.

[skeeter]

The Trump phenomenon leaves a path of destruction.

Its OK for Fox to cater to the conservative market, which is underserved by the news media, but its wasn't OK for them to throw in behind one republican candidate to the exclusion of the others, especially one who campaigned in the style Trump did. In doing so they alienated a very large segment of their audience.

Its pretty clear Trump's abusive campaign style last year led to many of his internecine difficulties today. A lesson for others to learn.

[DCPatriot]

Its OK for Fox to cater to the conservative market, which is underserved by the news media, but its wasn't OK for them to throw in behind one republican candidate to the exclusion of the others, especially one who campaigned in the style Trump did. In doing so they alienated a very large segment of their audience.

Its pretty clear Trump's abusive campaign style last year led to many of his internecine difficulties today. A lesson for others to learn.

The only FOX host that was unabashedly for Trump, was Sean Hannity.

Sure, there were other on-camera people who didn't try to trash him, but they ultimately know what too many people in HERE don't know.....that it's US vs. THEM.

[skeeter]

The only FOX host that was unabashedly for Trump, was Sean Hannity.

Sure, there were other on-camera people who didn't try to trash him, but they ultimately know what too many people in HERE don't know.....that it's US vs. THEM.

Oh, there were one or two others besides Hannity.

Anyway, since the Liberty Lobby/Obamacare dustup it seems Trump may have learned its unwise to trash those on his own team. He needs every member of his base on board.