Fox News Plans to Expand Its Radio Offering

Yahoo News ^ | 9/29/03

[Libloather]

Fox News Plans to Expand Its Radio Offering
Mon Sep 29,12:13 AM ET

NEW YORK -- Armed with one of the most powerful brands in news, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News now hopes to do for radio news what it did for television news: deploy a feisty mix of talk and information to unseat the industry's entrenched players, according to Monday's Wall Street Journal.

News Corp.'s radio arm, Fox News Radio Service, which launched last spring with one-minute news updates from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, plans to expand in November, selling news updates to radio stations around the clock and increasing its offering to five minutes.

Fox has a stable of well-known commentators, including Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, who already have popular radio shows, albeit through other syndicators. It also wants to take some of its other TV personalities out of the studio: Alan Colmes, who co-hosts the "Hannity and Colmes" show on Fox News, launched his own Fox-syndicated radio show a few months ago that is now carried by 34 stations.

The media world will watch the radio push closely. Mr. Murdoch's News Corp. is a significant purveyor of news and entertainment in other media but, aside from syndicated sports programming, hasn't yet been big in radio. In addition to the Fox broadcast network and the Fox News cable channel, News Corp. owns several newspapers -- including the New York Post, the Times of London and the Australian in Australia -- the Fox movie studio, and satellite operations overseas, including British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC.

Fox will square off against the powerhouses of radio news, Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - News)'s ABC News Radio and Westwood One Inc. (NYSE:WON - News) . ABC syndicates news updates, including many anchored by Peter Jennings, to 2,300 stations across the country. Westwood One, the radio-programming giant that is 18% owned by Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA - News) , is a distributor of material from not only CBS News but also AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - News)'s CNN and General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - News)'s NBC News. Westwood even distributed a Fox News-branded feed on radio until recently, but Fox had little to do with the editorial content.

[Libloather]

The quest for equal air time...

[zencat]

Thank God for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

[The South Texan]

Good. I bet most talk radio stations ,if they pay attention to who their audiences are, will dump ABC radio news for Fox radio news. ABC radio news is to the Democrats what Pravda was for the Commies in the old Soviet Union. Propaganda for the socialist!

[Miss Marple]

I would be SO happy if I never heard the sneering voice of Ann Compton ever again!

[novice2]

We already have Alan Colmes on Fox Radio, 760 AM, in Sab Diego. What a waste of a formerly conservative station. Previously, Laura Ingraham was on that station at that airtime.
I'm not thrilled so far.

[zencat]

You're not kidding. ABC news is rotten to the core. Ann Compton on ABC radio, Peter Jennings on World News Tonight, and George Snuffleupagus on whatever the hell that Sunday morning news show is.

[Celtic Conservative]

i've got fox news 24/7 now that I got XM radio, plus a lot of other talk. Well worth the investment if you're in your car a lot.

Slainte,

CC

[Wiggins]

Alan Colmes is a "Sneetch"

[nutmeg]

FoxFan ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my FoxFan list. *Warning: This can be a high-volume ping list at times.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[nutmeg]

It also wants to take some of its other TV personalities out of the studio: Alan Colmes, who co-hosts the "Hannity and Colmes" show on Fox News, launched his own Fox-syndicated radio show a few months ago that is now carried by 34 stations.

Fox can leave TV personality Alan Colmes locked up in its studio, for all I care. We finally have a pretty good choice of conservative talk radio shows here in the Hartford, CT-Springfield, MA area... I'll just bet it'll get messed up with the inclusion of ultra-liberal Colmes.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I threw my TV away before there was a Fox news. The only thing I know of Fox news is from their radio "news." THEY SSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!

"Reporting" on the death of the famed movie director the "news" reader said the director had helped in the "witch" hunt of the 1940s and 1950s. That's reporting? And, Fox news, it was the House Committee on un-American Activities -- IT WAS NOT the un-American activities committee! That's the scornful name the commie witches gave it.

Elia Kazan was the only person black listed.

Fox radio is no different from ABC radio "news."

[lewislynn]

The only thing I know of Fox news is from their radio "news." THEY SSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!

Does that mean you don't bow and pray at the alter of FOX and take everything they report as gospel?...

HEATHEN!

[Calvin Locke]

My local CC stations carry CNN. They're so biased and awful. Can't just report a staight news story.

[JoJo Gunn]

Fox has an altar? DANG! Must've missed it because of all those logos on the screen, which makes it look every bit the tawdry hooker CNN is. In fact, every logo is in the same spots....

[GOPJ]

FOX ROCKS bump

[TheGrimReaper]

It will be interesting to see what Fox comes up with.
We already have Rush, Laura Ingraham, Hannity, O'Reilly (who gets on my nerves a little too quickly), Michael Savage, Larry Elder, Glenn Beck, and some good local hosts.
Whoever they offer up had better be good... very good.