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Friday, July 22, 2016

Who's Next To Lead Fox News?

Rupert Murdoch tapped Roger Ailes to create and run the network in 1996, ushering in a controversial new era in cable news.

By hiring hosts like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and enforcing a conservative editorial point of view, Ailes developed a virtual public square for the American right and filled a void on television. It has dominated all other cable news channels for 14 years.

The channel claimed to be "fair and balanced," but in reality its programming was tilted in favor of conservative opinions and Republican politics, reflecting the views of Ailes himself. Fox mixed daily news reporting and nightly conservative opinion in ways that many critics found to be damaging to American discourse. But Fox's many fans said it was a necessary counterweight to liberal media bias.

Within six years, Fox came to dominate cable news ratings, dethroning CNN, and it has been a wildly successful business, with annual profits believed to exceed $1 billion.

Bill Shine
Last year Fox News was the number two channel on cable, behind only ESPN.

Ailes was admired and envied for his talent management skills. But in recent weeks some women have described a darker side.

With Murdoch the announced interim chief at Fox News, speculation swirls on the permanent replacement.

A name often dissused is current Fox News/SVP Bill Shine, according to money.cnn.com.  He runs programming for Fox News Channel's robust primetime roster. Politico reports there was some surprise that Shine wasn't simply elevated to the CEO perch right away.

The whole Rupert interim shuffle could credibly be read as a sign that the Murdoch sons really do want to plot a new direction for the network. Shine would be read as a sign the network wanted to continue the Ailes tradition.

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