From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fox News Channel | |
|---|---|
| Launched | October 7, 1996; 23 years ago[1] |
| Owned by | Fox News Media (Fox Corporation) |
| Picture format | 720p HDTV (downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Broadcast area | United States |
| Headquarters | 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York City, NY, U.S. 10036 |
| Sister channel(s) | Fox Business Network Fox Broadcasting Company |
| Website | www.foxnews.com |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV | Channel 360 (SD/HD) |
| Dish Network | Channel 205 (SD/HD) |
| Bell Satellite TV (Canada) | Channel 507 |
| Shaw Direct (Canada) | Channel 154 Channel 503 |
| Foxtel (Australia) | Channel 604 |
| SKY TV (New Zealand) | Channel 088 |
| Sky Italia | Channel 514 |
| Digital+ | Channel 77 |
| MEO (Portugal) | Channel 208 |
| Cignal (Philippines) | Channel 131 |
| OSN | Channel 411 |
| beIN | Channel 147 (HD) |
| Oi TV (Brazil) | Channel 184 |
| Movistar TV (Chile) | Channel 734 |
| G Sat (Philippines) | Channel 50 |
| Cable | |
| Available on most U.S. providers | Channel slots vary on each operator |
| Cablevisión (Argentina) | Channel 552 (Digital) |
| Macau Cable TV (Macau) | Channel 816 |
| Cable TV Hong Kong (Hong Kong) | Channel 123 |
| Movistar TV (Peru) | Channel 548 |
| SkyCable (Philippines) | Channel 138 Nationwide: Channel 510 |
| Izzi Telecom (Mexico) | Channel 180 |
| Satellite radio | |
| Sirius | Channel 114 |
| XM | Channel 115 |
| IPTV | |
| Verizon FiOS | Channel 118 (SD) Channel 618 (HD) |
| Bell Fibe TV (Canada) | Channel 507 |
| VMedia (Canada) | Channel 181 |
| Optik TV (Canada) | Channel 811 (HD; East) Channel 9811 (SD; West) |
| now TV (Hong Kong) | Channel 318 |
| Singtel TV (Singapore) | Channel 165 |
| StarHub TV (Singapore) | Channel 702 |
| Streaming media | |
| foxnewsgo.com | Live simulcast (Pay-TV subscribers only) |
| fuboTV | Live Stream |
Fox News (officially Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC and commonly known as Fox) is an American multinational conservative[2][3] cable news television channel. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owned by the Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Fox News provides service to 86 countries and overseas territories worldwide,[4] with international broadcasts featuring Fox Extra segments during ad breaks.
The channel was created by Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch to appeal to a conservative audience, hiring former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO.[5][6] It launched on October 7, 1996, to 17 million cable subscribers.[7] Fox News grew during the late 1990s and 2000s to become the dominant subscription news network in the U.S.[8] As of September 2018, approximately 87,118,000 U.S. households (90.8% of television subscribers) received Fox News.[9] In 2019, Fox News was the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers.[10][11][12] Murdoch is the current executive chairman and Suzanne Scott is the CEO.[13][14]
Fox News has been described as practicing biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party, the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, and conservative causes while portraying the Democratic Party in a negative light.[15][16][17][18] Critics have cited the channel as detrimental to the integrity of news overall.[19][20] Fox News employees have said that news reporting operates independently of its opinion and commentary programming, and have denied bias in news reporting, while former employees have said that Fox ordered them to “slant the news in favor of conservatives”.[21] During Trump’s presidency, observers have noted a pronounced tendency of the Fox News Channel to serve as a “mouthpiece” for the administration, providing “propaganda” and a “feedback loop” for Trump, with one presidential scholar stating, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”[22][23]
History
Main article: History of Fox News
In May 1985, Australian publisher Rupert Murdoch announced that he and American industrialist and philanthropist Marvin Davis intended to develop “a network of independent stations as a fourth marketing force” to compete directly with CBS, NBC, and ABC through the purchase of six television stations owned by Metromedia.[24] In July 1985, 20th Century Fox announced Murdoch had completed his purchase of 50% of Fox Filmed Entertainment, the parent company of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation.[25] A year later, 20th Century Fox earned $5.6 million in its fiscal third period ended May 31, 1986, in contrast to a loss of $55.8 million in the third period of the previous year.[26]
Subsequently, and prior to founding FNC, Murdoch had gained experience in the 24-hour news business when News Corporation‘s BSkyB subsidiary began Europe’s first 24-hour news channel (Sky News) in the United Kingdom in 1989.[27] With the success of his fourth network efforts in the United States,[28] experience gained from Sky News and the turnaround of 20th Century Fox, Murdoch announced on January 31, 1996, that News Corp. would launch a 24-hour news channel on cable and satellite systems in the United States as part of a News Corp. “worldwide platform” for Fox programming: “The appetite for news – particularly news that explains to people how it affects them – is expanding enormously”.[29]
In February 1996, after former U.S. Republican Party political strategist and NBC executive[30] Roger Ailes left cable television channel America’s Talking (now MSNBC), Murdoch asked him to start Fox News Channel. Ailes demanded five months of 14-hour workdays and several weeks of rehearsal shows before its launch on October 7, 1996.[1]
At its debut 17 million households were able to watch FNC;[7] however, it was absent from the media markets of New York City and Los Angeles. Rolling news coverage during the day consisted of 20-minute single-topic shows such as Fox on Crime or Fox on Politics, surrounded by news headlines. Interviews featured facts at the bottom of the screen about the topic or the guest. The flagship newscast at the time was The Schneider Report, with Mike Schneider‘s fast-paced delivery of the news. During the evening, Fox featured opinion shows: The O’Reilly Report (later The O’Reilly Factor), The Crier Report (hosted by Catherine Crier) and Hannity & Colmes.
From the beginning, FNC has placed heavy emphasis on visual presentation. Graphics were designed to be colorful and gain attention; this helped the viewer to grasp the main points of what was being said, even if they could not hear the host (with on-screen text summarizing the position of the interviewer or speaker, and “bullet points” when a host was delivering commentary). Fox News also created the “Fox News Alert”, which interrupted its regular programming when a breaking news story occurred.Fox News Studios in 2009.
To accelerate its adoption by cable providers, Fox News paid systems up to $11 per subscriber to distribute the channel.[31] This contrasted with the normal practice, in which cable operators paid stations carriage fees for programming. When Time Warner bought Ted Turner‘s Turner Broadcasting System, a federal antitrust consent decree required Time Warner to carry a second all-news channel in addition to its own CNN on its cable systems. Time Warner selected MSNBC as the secondary news channel, not Fox News. Fox News claimed this violated an agreement (to carry Fox News). Citing its agreement to keep its U.S. headquarters and a large studio in New York City, News Corporation enlisted the help of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani‘s administration to pressure Time Warner Cable (one of the city’s two cable providers) to transmit Fox News on a city-owned channel.[32] City officials threatened to take action affecting Time Warner’s cable franchises in the city.[33]
During the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fox News was the first news organization to run a news ticker on the bottom of the screen to keep up with the flow of information that day. The ticker has remained, informing viewers about additional news which reporters may not mention on-screen and repeating news mentioned during a broadcast; it has proven popular with viewers.[34]
Political alignment
Fox News has been described as practicing biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party, the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, and conservative causes while portraying the Democratic Party in a negative light.[15][16][17][18] Critics have cited the channel as detrimental to the integrity of news overall.[19][20] Fox News employees have said that news reporting operates independently of its opinion and commentary programming, and have denied bias in news reporting, while former employees have said that Fox ordered them to “slant the news in favor of conservatives”.[21] During Trump’s presidency, observers have noted a pronounced tendency of the Fox News Channel to serve as a “mouthpiece” for the administration, providing “propaganda” and a “feedback loop” for Trump, with one presidential scholar stating, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”[22][23]