Posted on 05/12/2005 1:09:50 PM PDT by LdSentinal
May 9--New York --- When Fox News Channel first elbowed its way into the growing colony of cable TV networks and onto the air in late 1996, it had little more than an attitude, a visionary at the helm and the approval to reach into Rupert Murdoch's deep pockets. Cable companies pay established programmers to carry their content. But Fox News shelled out from $10 to $13 per subscriber to the operators as inducement to sign contracts carving out channel space for 10 years.
From those humble beginnings, the feisty upstart has largely redefined televised news.
Fox News' motto --- "fair and balanced" --- has become a fuse for debate over the network's merits. The more appropriate catchphrase might be "search and destroy," given how it has annihilated cable news rivals in the ratings.
Now negotiations for contracts with cable distributors are tilted in Fox's favor. Industry sources have told the trade publication Multichannel News that the current licensing fee of 23 to 25 cents per subscriber that the network receives from the cable companies could double --- a potentially astonishing increase in the current climate.
"Fox [News] has a strong bargaining position," said Denver-based TV programming consultant Jedd Palmer, who negotiated one of its original deals. He suggested that the network might even be so bold as to seek reimbursement for those $10 to $13 enticement payments.
Fox News could even use its muscle to strong-arm a slot for a financial news offshoot. Preparations are far enough along that, once Fox News President Roger Ailes gets a go-ahead from media mogul Murdoch, a launch could follow within a few months.
"That would be one of the tools in my negotiating kit," said independent media analyst Larry Gerbrandt, who, like Palmer, can only speculate on Ailes' strategy.
On that matter, Ailes isn't talking. When he does, the former politico resembles a coach firing up his troops --- often belittling his opponents.
His hard-charging network has spawned legions of critics, typified in the Al Franken book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and the pointed documentary "Outfoxed." Two entrepreneurs concocted the channel-filter FOXBlocker, a small metal device that screws into the rear of a TV set.
Why all the fuss over a network where only an estimated one in four channel-surfers stop regularly? It's a respectable ratio on a dial with as many clicks as a roulette wheel, yet Fox News still breathes the fumes of broadcasting's big four.
But, in the fragmented world of TV watching, numbers are relative, and the most significant one is this: eight, where Fox News ranks in the cable channel universe. It overtook CNN in December 2001, though the Atlanta-based 24-hour news pioneer has shown gains in some viewer categories during the past few months.
The eyes of the media industry are trained on this alternative choice for news and views. And wondering: How'd they pull it off?
The scrutiny comes as no small source of amusement to Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president of programming.
"I'm always surprised at how people can't figure out why we're successful," Shine said recently in his Midtown Manhattan office, a U.S. map broken down by red and blue states over his left shoulder.
Detractors boil down Fox's rise to a perceived pandering to a disaffected segment of society --- read: white middle-class --- weary of U.S.-bashing here and abroad. They are eager to pin the scarlet letter C, for conservative, on the lapels of on-air personalities, beneath the tiny American flags that a few wear.
Some attribute Fox News' ascendancy as fortunate timing. They say the network caught the perfect wave as the nation's political waters shifted to the Republican Party.
The emergence of radio talk shows, the growing mistrust of deep-rooted media and the expanded audience for cable TV, which now exceeds its over-the-air brethren, also dovetailed nicely for the network.
Fox News people say the appeal stems not from leaning right but from presenting all angles.
The winning formula, as described by Shine: See how the other networks cover a story. Ask whether there is another side to present or another way to report it. Then practice solid journalism.
The back-and-forth on bias and coloring the news overshadows a fundamental truth that, by today's standards and tastes, Fox News is good TV that draws an audience from across the spectrum.
A study released last summer by Pew Research Center concluded that 48 percent of its devotees do not consider themselves conservative. Its admirers include CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein, who has said, "They are interesting. They're exciting."
Its style has spawned the so-called Fox Effect, which means different things to different people. For some, it is guaranteeing a so-called conservative view on the air. For others, it is news anchors bantering with on site reporters and tossing out witty asides, even commentary.
If the Fox Effect exists, it could become apparent in the sea change under way behind anchor desks at the traditional networks. Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings are giving way to a new generation that could adopt the Fox News tone.
Fox News anchors convey "a little less of a sense of self-importance," said Robert Thompson, director of the Center For The Study of Popular TV at Syracuse University."There is definitely a Fox style that is appealing to people."
Reese Schonfeld, co-founder of CNN News, finds Fox News easy to absorb. "It's comfortable to watch," said Schonfeld, now involved in cable network start-ups. On-air personalities "seem at ease with each other."
Shepard Smith, host of the nightly news at 7, conveys a looseness that places him closer in manner to faux newscaster Jon Stewart on Comedy Central than the broadcast network cast "We came into it with the idea of not taking ourselves too seriously," he said. "Clearly, others who used to knock it like us now, since they're using it, too."
Shine sees evidence of the Fox Effect in a more patriotic, middle-America bent on some traditional network shows.
"I find it funny that [NBC's] 'Today' show is now 'America's family," Brian Williams is reporting 'America's stories' and hanging out at NASCAR races," Shine said.
Ailes recognized early on that most Americans know the news by mid-evening, so he established pure opinion hours as the network's anchor programs: "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 p.m., with the polarizing Bill O'Reilly usually leaning right, followed by "Hannity & Colmes," designed as point-counterpoint, though the conservative Sean Hannity is the unmistakable headliner.
"They have turned the news into a spectator sport," Thompson said.
Sport. It's a metaphor the Fox News worker bees often reference, in keeping with Ailes' hyper-competitive nature. To him, the ratings serve as a scoreboard. And his team has been on the winning side in cable news for three years running, mostly by a wide margin.
"We are clobbering the competition," said lawyer Greta van Susteren, who moderates "On The Record" weeknights at 10, a whirlwind news review that touches on legal matters.
The trash talk emanates from the top, where Ailes creates an us-against-the-world aura.
On CBS, whose disputed report on President Bush's National Guard service led to an independent probe and staff shakeup, Ailes said: "I don't have a former attorney general investigating us. I haven't fired my anchors, I haven't fired my producers."
He also dissed MSNBC for hiring "every blonde who hasn't worked for us, and that's not working."
And, of course, CNN. Asked what he envied about Fox News' main adversary, Ailes said favorable media coverage.
On C-Span, Marvin Kalb, who interviewed Ailes, wondered why Fox News has no international news network, like CNN. Ailes cracked, "We decided not to start an anti-American channel."
Ailes has worked for three presidents --- all Republican. In defining viewers drawn to Fox, he cited to Kalb those Americans fed up with a glut of federal programs --- a standard complaint by Republicans.
Ailes prefers to frame the media battleground not as conservative vs. liberal, but mainstream or elite vs. . . . his way.
As Fox News approaches its 10th anniversary, it is well positioned for an extended run. Ailes reported profits in excess of $200 million last year. Ad revenue has leaped nearly 30 percent in a year, with a projection of $500 million in 2005, says Paul Rittenberg, senior vice president of ad sales.
"Fox is now the media elite," Thompson, of Syracuse University, said. "These [networks] that shape themselves as the Davids going against the media Goliaths --- Fox is a Goliath."
Yet Thompson expects Ailes to veer little from his current course, a notion seconded by ex-CNN chief Schonfeld.
Said Smith, "When things are going so well, why would you change?"
CABLE NEWS MARKET SHARE:
--Fox News: 46 percent
--CNN: 24 percent
--MSNBC: 12 percent
--CNN Headline News: 11 percent
--CNBC: 7 percent
*since last December
Source: Nielsen Media Research
All hail Robert Ailes
Ah, you again. The fake, Wal-Mart bashing "FReeper."
Well, howdy l'il buckeroo!
Hooray for Fox! It's the only cable news I watch.
Begone, troll....
FOX's success is a clear indicator that the average American (not you, obviously) is sick of the Socialists Bullcrap.
Welcome to Free Republic! Goto DailyKos for your daily Kool Aid...
What???? You mean he's not for real?! LOL
But I will be watching MSNBC at 5 today as freeper Kristin will be on to dicuss Bolton with Ron Reagan The Lesser.
Do you have your "OutFoxed" DVD boxed set yet?
They are only conservative if you are looking from the far left. I don't even consider them middle of the road. O'Really is another gun-grabber, just like Pol Pot, Stalin, Hi Chi Minh, etc.
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