The neutrality of this article is disputed.
The FOX News Channel is an American cable and satellite news channel launched in 1996. It is available to 80 million subscribers in the U.S. and to further viewers internationally, and broadcasts primarily out of its New York City studios.
Launched on October 7, 1996 to 17 million cable subscribers, the nascent network quickly rose to prominence in the late 1990s as it started taking market share away from CNN; the channel now bills itself as the "most watched cable news channel" in the U.S.
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Fox News presents a wide variety of programming. The following is the usual weekday lineup:
From time to time, FOX News also produces a newsmagazine show for its Fox affiliates called The Pulse.
The channel is now available internationally, though its world programming is the same as its American programming; CNN's international service, on the other hand, airs regionally focused programs overseas which are entirely separate from the channel's American broadcasts.
Like the rest of FOX, FOX News Channel is owned by Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is a sister channel to Sky News, which is based in the United Kingdom. It is also carried on the UK's British Sky Broadcasting satellite television network.
The CEO, Chairman, and President of FOX News is Roger Ailes. After he began his career in broadcasting, Ailes started Ailes Communications, Inc and was successful as a political strategist for Presidents Nixon and Reagan and in producing campaign TV commercials for Republican political candidates. His work for former President Richard M. Nixon was chronicled in the book The Selling of the President: 1968 by Joe McGinniss.
Ailes withdrew from consulting and returned to broadcasting in 1992. He ran the CNBC channel and America's Talking, the forerunner of MSNBC for NBC. More recently, Ailes was named Broadcaster of the Year by Broadcast and Cable Magazine in 2003.
Several FOX News anchors have conservative backgrounds. Managing editor and host Brit Hume is a contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard. Daytime anchor David Asman previously worked at the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Manhattan Institute, a conservative thinktank. Former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow is a conservative columnist, radio host, and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration. Chris Wallace joined in 2004.
FOX News anchors with liberal backgrounds include primetime host Greta Van Susteren who donates to Democratic candidates and whose husband advised Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. FOX News also employs several liberal authors and politicians as former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, longtime liberal and former daytime talkshow host Geraldo Rivera, author Eleanor Clift, Nation magazine correspondent David Corn, and Democratic strategist Susan Estrich.
FOX News asserts that it is more objective and factual than other American networks with promotional statements such as "fair and balanced" and "we report, you decide." Their commentators argue that other news channels are dominated by a liberal bias. Meanwhile, critics contend that FOX has a conservative bias.
A report in the Los Angeles Times on November 1, 2003, quoted Charlie Reina, a FOX News producer for six years, saying FOX News executives require the network's on-air anchors and reporters to cover news stories from a right-wing viewpoint and distributed a daily memo explaining what stories they wanted highlighted and what spin to place on them. MediaMatters.org subsequently compiled the photocopied memos online. [1] (http://mediamatters.org/items/200407140002) Sharri Berg, vice president of News Operations at Fox News Channel said in response, "Like any former, disgruntled employee, Charlie Reina has an ax to grind."
FOX News CEO Roger Ailes defended the network in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([2] (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005157)), stating that FOX's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage and ignore instances in which FOX has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans or the Republican Party.
FOX and its supporters maintain that FOX is only perceived as being 'right of center' only because they are not 'left of center', as they claim the rest of the media is.
FOX News currently leads the cable news market, earning better ratings than its chief competitors CNN and MSNBC combined; Nielsen ratings show that though more unique individuals watch CNN, FOX viewers are likely to watch for longer periods of time, which results in higher ratings for FOX. Television observers credit the success to what they see as FNC's better production values, better graphics and more personable hosts.