Fox Offering More News Talk Than News (Sour Grapes Alert)

ContraCostaTime (Bay Area Rag) ^ | April 10, 2003 | Chuck Blarney

[SamAdams76]

AN AMERICAN flag logo adorns the upper left corner of the screen. Dramatic stand-up-and-salute drumbeats pound away under regularly scheduled updates. Gung-ho, self-aggrandizing commentators behave like cheerleaders sans the pompons. Dissenting viewpoints get summarily crushed with the verbal equivalent of bunker-busting bombs.

[SamAdams76]

Thanks for the address. I just fired off e-mail giving Chuckie hell for reporting that Ollie North was with the "Army."

[GAGOPSWEEPTOVICTORY]

Come to think of it, couldn't Murdoch just knock out CNN from being aired on Direc TV if he bought it?

No, under the new regulations he can not just boot CNN out of Direct TV because he is also a programmer as well as an operator. Maybe he can boot CNN down to the 300s and move Fox News to the more premium 202 channel though.

[Amelia]

re #22 - CP, you're watching the news with the wrong head.

[SamAdams76]

Her hair was combed out in her earlier days too!

[jackbill]

Col. Oliver North issues starry-eyed accounts of his Army bunkmates.

Ollie is with the Marines, asshole. I guess we know how attentive Mr. "Blarney" is.

[jackbill]

At least Fox News doesn't have anyone on "suicide watch", like CNN does, with Judy Woodruff.

[lewislynn]

She has done some great interviews and she seems to know her stuff.

Absolutely, and she's twice as good as everyone's heart throb Laurie Dhue

[Chancellor Palpatine]

***swoon***

[LibertarianLiz]

To add to this point, I had to sit through the NBC coverage of the statue yesterday, and Katie sounded like she was covering a funeral, and that is not exaggerated ONE BIT. She was totally taken aback at the celebrations by the newly freed Iraqi people.

I was channel-surfing yesterday and happened upon Katie (being very serious) as she interviewed some thin, western-dressed, Arab woman. (I have seen this woman before and I think she is Pali or Jordanian.) Anyway, in the small screen in the corner was a running video of what was going on in Baghdad and at that moment, a young Iraqi man was running holding an American flag streaming behind him.

I'm half-listening to Katie asking (very seriously) of this woman something like; "how long will it take for these people to actually trust us?"

I started laughing and (talking to the t.v.) said: "check your monitor, katie, not that long."

[gcruse]

I would not at all be surprised if FoxNews started achieving higher ratings than ABC, NBC or CBS in prime time at some point.

If Fox were available in as many homes as the networks.....now that would be interesting.

[scouse]

I don't know what Murdoch can do with CNN, except maybe raise the price.

[scouse]

I don't know what the deal is with Hughes. I saw Murdoch with Neal Cavuto, yesterday on Fox,, but all he mentioned was Direct TV. It was later I saw the news scrolling across the bottom of the screen and it mentioned both companies.

[Publius6961]

Fox News -- with or without Geraldo Rivera -- has been dominating the feisty war between TV's 24-hour news stations.

Well Blarney (what an appropriate name!), are you ready to join Jane Fonda at shouting at us, the "ignorant of history" average American who makes those ratings possible?

[Mike Darancette]

How about 24 hours of the Flag hating yesterday.

What was worse was that the bashing was done by talking heads that had almost indecipherable accents (I guess English as a second language give credibility as an America Hater).

I was having to hit the SAP for a translation.

[WKB]

To: scouse Come to think of it, couldn't Murdoch just knock out CNN from being aired on Direc TV if he bought it?

I have wondered why Fox, MSNBC, CNBC etc: are numbered in the 360s
and CNN and Headline News are at 200 with the other stations.
Tin Foil Hat time I guess

[johnb838]

See, I think she looked sweeter and more feminine before the little nip & tuck. She let people in the biz convince her it was something she needed to do for her career.

[Timesink]

a lot of the criticisms are, in my estimation, valid. whatever fox is, and i have it on right now as i do usually, it is not the network of record.

That's because there is no such thing as a "network of record."

[Future Useless Eater]

I'm sure the Hughes part of the deal is VERY significant. They have some outstanding emerging technology that could take off with the right kind of pricing and marketing. ( www.direcway.com )

News Corp also already owned the top satellite scrambling technology (called NDS). It was good but pricey, and needs regular upgrades to stay ahead of pirates, which the cheapskates at DirecTV failed to do.

DirecTV was instead, trying to cut News Corp out of the picture, by getting Hughes to copy their technology. Suits and counter-suits resulted.

Hughes/DirecTV lost their part of the court battle this January to News Corp. Judge Dismisses DIRECTV Claims Against NDS

My guess is that Rupert bought out Hughes/DirecTV at a lower price because of that ruling. Rupert has a great track record in Europe running satellite TV companies and taking over huge market shares.

As for shafting CNN, I hope he does the reverse of what DishNetwork has done. If you check out Dish's BASIC programming package for $24/month, it includes CNN and MSNBC, but NOT FoxNew!!! They are forcing conservatives to pay 40% more to get FNC.

And much of that money goes to feed Ted Turner and the Clinton's personal piggy-bank: VIACOM.
You might know them as

• Hillary's shady bookdealers,
• The company that edited out the VH1 concert boo's
• the company that pays Bill millions for a few minutes of democRAT hate-speech towards GW each Sunday
• the cable channels that poison our kids minds with endless anti-family messages

Rupert should, and probably WILL offer a low-cost DirecTV that beats Dish's $24 package hands down. It should contain FNC and Sky News, but NOT CNN, (and maybe not MSNBC either). It will no doubt contain many more family-friendly channels.

For the liberals that want to spend 60% more, they can get their CNN and stinkin anti-family crap, (all on very high channel numbers mixed in with home shopping channels). YEA!

[ladyinred]

fair and balanced" is blurted out over and over as if constant repetition will convince the world that it's actually true.

Hey, they learned this from the RATS! Just keep repeating things over and over and they become true. LOL

I expect they will also write about the obvious liberal left leanings of the other networks next right? (sarcasm)