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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the fit-and-proper-yet? dept.

Various news outlets are reporting that Bill Shine has been replaced as co-president of Fox News Channel. Suzanne Scott has replaced him. In possibly related news, there are reports that 21st Century Fox, which owns Fox News Channel, is in talks with the Blackstone Group (a private equity investment firm) to purchase Tribune Media, a U.S. broadcasting chain.

In the UK, 21st Century Fox has requested permission from the government's Office of Communications to increase its ownership in Sky News; in April the network dismissed commentator Bill O'Reilly after paying out settlements in multiple sexual harassment lawsuits regarding Mr. O'Reilly.

coverage (Shine):

coverage (Tribune Media):

related story:
Fox News Chief Resigns


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:26AM (14 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:26AM (#503461)

    Rupert was smart enough to realize the half of the country that wasn't coastal and blue was underserved. He is exiting and his children aren't so business savvy, more interested in what their peers in polite society think. FNC has eliminated pretty much their entire executive and onscreen talent stable in the year since the kids have taken over the business. And we still haven't seen the end of it, Hannity won't last the year and probably not the summer and if the rumor mill is to believed, few who were hired by Ailes will survive.

    This means the executive and talent stack of a news channel that proved itself more than capable of ratings dominance is currently available. (Or languishing at MSNBC like Greta and MeAgain... doubt anyone cares about Kelly though.) Care to wager how long that situation remains? All that remains is somebody with a) the cash and b) the media influence to get cable carriage to put the right deal together and rumors are that is already happening.

    In the end, the winning move would have been to simply spin FNC out and sell it as a going concern instead of spitefully murdering it to grease regulatory approval for their planned M&A activity.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:43AM (4 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:43AM (#503465) Journal

    Another possibility. Someone puts together: a) good team b) internet video channel
    The team is good enough to get high view numbers which brings advertising money. That will fund a satellite feed. And some other channel(s) will feel the competition.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:58AM

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:58AM (#503469)

      A) They never got the ad money their ratings warranted while on normal cable because of the Prog trolls running boycotts and hammering advertisers. They would be 'Demonitized' on the Internet as well. Even with that though FNC accounts for about a quarter of News Corp's profits. When they stopped competing to be #1 in cable news and went for #1 in Cable it was hard to avoid turning a profit when your production budget is cable shouting heads on a fancy set. If the new competitor couldn't replicate those numbers instantly the ad revenue picture could be as bleak as FNC's a decade ago surviving on goldline and catheter ads in prime time.

      B) Trying to replicate The Blaze's business model probably isn't the best pitch. In truth the business model was wonderful, the execution was beginning to show great results; it was Beck's erratic antics, meddling and excessive attempts at empire building that have them on the edge of the abyss. But still, bad optics.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:10AM (2 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:10AM (#503475) Homepage

      What would be some good ideas:

      1. Strictly segregate the interviews and opinions from the fact segments on a show-by-show basis, just like how good news outlets used to do. Sometimes we just want to watch the damn news, like how Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts Ma'am."

      2. When interviews are conducted, try to play a little hardball whether or not they're "their guy" or not, and leave the mention of their new book out of it.

      3. Embrace centrist but America-first points of view, particularly free speech, and call out any affiliation's attempts to stifle it. Think Breitbart with less Christianity and a more common-sense attitude towards family planning.

      4. Keep Andrew Napolitano and let him say whatever the fuck he wants.

      5. Have a "liberal vs. conservative" show like Hannity and Colmes, but put the liberal and conservative on more equal footing (which would likely mean not having Hannity as the conservative), emphasize the common-ground, and have reasonable debate without always having the conservative constantly condescendingly curb-stomping a milquetoast liberal as Hannity did Colmes.

      6. Have an occasional light-hearted show similar to the American Football draft process, with "team owners" of a variety of political backgrounds draft their own "fantasy politican teams" candidate-by-candidate and explain their reasoning as their announce each of their picks. To make it a little more interesting, each "team" could not pick another's draft. For example, if one team drafts Rand Paul, another team would say, "Aw dang, I wanted him. Well..." They could do this for almost all levels, state government, congress, up to the presidential race. To make it even more interesting they could have special guests from current or former city or state government, or congress; perhaps with some cute scoring visuals.

      7. Have a few less-attractive people (think like Rachel Maddow or a fat guy or something), but don't go out of your way to be patronizing or pandering to too many outsiders. RuPaul would be a great guest-personality because she's pretty no-bullshit. Ellen Degeneres, not so much.

      8. Offer digital delivery with costing based on a per-show basis - learn the lesson from cable TV and don't force people to buy all the shit they don't want.

      9. Feature technology segments that aren't paid ads disguised as reviews or pozzed with the SJW AIDS.

      10. Have sports segments without political bullshit, get the better ones from ESPN before that starts sinking the Disney ship.

      Any more good ideas?

         

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:34PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:34PM (#503692) Journal

        Good ideas.

        The biggest thing about Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts Ma'am." is that as Ted Koppel points out, ideology has become more important than facts. They need to fix that first. That is Fox News' number one problem. If they don't fix that, then they are still bad for America as Ted Koppel says.

        You can have whatever ideology you want. But the facts are what they are. You can't make the facts fit the ideology. The ideology (on both sides) should bend to the facts.

        Fox News has been the fake news for too long. I remember a decade ago reading about how people who watched were less informed about basic facts than people who watched other news. I don't mean opinions. I mean facts. Like the sun rises in the East not the West.

        When the president picks up a false idea from Fox News and tweets it as fact without any evidence and then doubles down on it, that is a problem caused by Fox News.

        When a presidential candidate (Romney) is fact checked by the moderator over a fake fact he is wrong about, and that originated from Fox News, that is another problem caused by Fox News. That might have been the thing contributing to Romney losing the election. (Not that I'm crying over it.)

        It's fine to have media with a particular bias, if that bias is well known. But quit calling it fair and balanced. And don't just make stuff up and call it news. CNN doesn't make stuff up and call it news -- CNN calls it BREAKING NEWS!

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by rondon on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:25PM

        by rondon (5167) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:25PM (#503776)

        I've come to know you as the greatest long-term troll I've ever witnessed, but if you keep futzing around with interesting (maybe even good!) ideas like this I'm going to start to wonder if you are losing your edge.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:08AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:08AM (#503474)

    [Begin Yadda yadda yadda] Special SJW Task Force, jmorris squad (reduction in staff is not appreciated!), interim report. jmorris may be on the edge of a significant development. Fox New's demise may precipitate a crisis of nut-jobbery, we should be prepared. The "jmorris" said:

    Hannity won't last the year

    Recommend that counseling teams be ready to go, this may be the point of vulnerability we have been waiting for. Point out that "they would never fire Rachel Maddow" or for that matter Keith Olbermann. We need to convince jmorris that liberals will never betray him. This will work much better than the Obsidian Faction's suggestion of torture. We want jmorris to be our friend, an ally gained by the pure force of morality and the well known liberal bias of actual reality. That is where we want the jmorris. [end moderately encrypted obscured "not for public viewing" message--can we get this to actually work?]

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:16AM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:16AM (#503476) Homepage

      They'd never fire Rachel Maddow because they're too afraid of him. He's a soldier of fortune in his spare time, and the MSNBC execs saw how he once split a man's skull in half with his bare chin.

      • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:08PM

        by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:08PM (#503635) Journal

        If admit, if Rachel Maddow were a guy s/he'd be kind of cute actually.

        Please continue to misgender cisfemales, especially butch lesbian feminists. It makes me smile. More people should do this. Harass them whenever they go to the bathroom until they give up and use the men's room.

        This is the only way that feminists will learn that when you legislate bathrooms and make up something out of whole cloth like the idea of bathroom rape, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Especially if you're a feminist and think women should be able to have short hair. The reasons for feminists to do the shit they do is beyond me, especially with asshats that always seem to pop up who want to convince me that after the shit I've been through, somehow I've gotten it all wrong about feminism, even though they know damned well they're lying.

    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:30AM

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:30AM (#503478)

      Uh, who -hasn't- fired Olberman at this point?

      I'm observing FNC's demise as a mostly disinterested observer at this point anyway. Their commentary runs from D to mainstream R with a few Trumpers permitted to talk occasionally, but everyone else gives them the stink eye when they do it. FBN lets the Idiotarian Libertarians out of the cage from time to time, like Napolitano, but is otherwise mainstream establishment R. Lou Dobbs is about as radical as FBN gets. Which is also probably due for a purging.

      I'm Alt-Right / NRx / DE. I have little use for establishment cuckservatives. The one thing you can count on them doing is surrendering the moment victory is at hand. The epiphany was realizing this behavior wasn't because they are cowards or even corrupted, it is because they are conservatives.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:23AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:23AM (#503509)

    Your post-hoc rationalization is pretty funny. You sound like the kind of guy who believes all that crap about trump being a 4d chessmaster too.

    What's going on here is fox "won" when trump was elected.
    But, just like the republicans and their 5 million different votes to repeal obamacare, they never actually planned on winning.
    Fox never counted on a situation where their message of victimization at the hands of evil, america-hating democrats no longer applied because the democrats were so obviously neutered.
    Without an enemy, all they've got is constant trump fellation. And that's really no substitute, nobody can fool themselves that they are fighting the good fight now.
    The whole network is now suddenly very fragile.
    The ailes ouster was the first domino, orielly the second, this shine guy the third (well the guy who made the dick-sucking joke about ivanka was like 2.1).
    So now its all falling apart. They are a victim of their own success.

    Will they be able to build something out of all the rubble?
    Nobody knows. But breitbart, theblaze and infowars are looking to cannibalize as many eyeballs as they can.
    And that will probably be even worse for the country.
    Especially if Bannon ends up running the heritage foundation.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:31PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:31PM (#503583)

      This. The Democratic party is/was always divided among a number of somewhat disparate voting blocks - blacks gays, cityfolk, jews, Hollywoods, etc. Their triumph or failure always hinged on being able to unite enough of them into a single platform. The Republican party, however, was much more broad-base baseline, standing on principles - limited Government, lower taxation, states rights, strong defense, etc. Their success/failure has historically depended on how they've been able to stick to their principles without getting bogged down in side conversations (everything social). A good Republican candidate typically looks like a principled guy who is financially successful (won't screw up the economy).

      That said, the Republican party stands much more for being *against* things than *for* anything. What is the Republican position on a national healthcare system? No. What is the Republican position on using federal taxpayer monies to pay for Department of Education standards for all the states? No. What is the Republican position on enhancing gun regulation? No.

      For the last 8 years there has been an opportunity to run a news network on being *against* things. The stories write themselves - "[evil] President Obama is going to take your money and pay for programs. Programs that infringe on your freedom by taking your taxpayer dollars and forcing you to do anything at all. We at Fox News are against it! Government overreach!"

      But here's the thing - you can't really administer a nation by being against its administration. "I don't want a national healthcare system" isn't a *solution* or a *policy*. "Build a wall that no one thinks will fix immigration" isn't a *solution* or a *policy*. Additionally, Fox News can't very well be *against* everything that Trump does - he is representative of their side of the argument. Additionally, President Trump is unpopular and just fellating him ("The right and just president has just signed the best law ever written!") doesn't win viewers.

      They have nothing to report.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:27PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:27PM (#503644)

        They have nothing they WANT to report.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:50PM (#504019)

          Yep fuck those evil republicans? Am I right?

          BTW your cognitive bias is showing.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:48PM (#504017)

    There is another possibility. They are hemorrhaging money. All of the news orgs are. Why would fox be different?

    Frankly the 'news' is terrible. It does not tell you anything other than what to be outraged at today. Which may be 100% contradicted tomorrow. People are cluing into that. CNN did it a couple of years ago and offloaded all the big names.

    My bet is they are bundling to bury the numbers. They all do when the shit hits the fan. If they spun it out they would have to show the numbers and no one would buy it.