How Fox News has stayed on top (Politico)

Roger Ailes and about 20 of his producers and executives ? including experts in lighting, graphics and engineering ? gather now and then in a conference room on the second floor of Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan and watch the channel for eight hours straight.

?Anybody can say anything about what?s on the air,? said Bill Shine, Fox?s executive vice president of programming, ?from ?We don?t like the color of the graphics? to ?We don?t like the clothing that the anchors are wearing? to ?Why did we pick that story?? ?Who stacked that show???

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The marathon critiques are one way that Fox News tries to stay sharp despite 10 straight years as the cable-news ratings leader ? a milestone the channel, which launched in 1996 as a distant underdog to CNN, celebrated this week.

?America has clearly embraced fair and balanced news,? Ailes, the chairman and CEO of Fox News, said in a statement.

Perhaps not all of America ? Fox News has been a lightning rod for criticism from the left and has been blasted by many prominent Democrats, including top officials in the Obama White House, for the conservative bent of its morning and prime-time programming. More neutral observers fault Fox for setting the trend for more opinion on cable news, and Ailes himself is portrayed in some liberal circles as an omnipotent, Republican Svengali.

But even the channel?s most hardened critics would acknowledge that it has become a business, media and cultural juggernaut, lavishing airtime on conservatives like Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and Karl Rove, while driving debate on subjects ranging from the rape accusation against Duke lacrosse players to the proposal for a mosque near ground zero.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), one of the most liberal members of Congress, is a frequent visitor to the Fox Washington bureau, near Union Station. ?They?ve always been fair to me,? he said in a telephone interview.? ?There?s a misconception that the only people who watch Fox are right-wing Republicans. They have a large audience, and it?s important to reach. How can we ever change people?s thinking if we don?t try to talk to them??

Fox averaged 1.9 million viewers in prime time in January, compared with 841,000 for CNN and 801,000 for MSNBC, according to Nielsen figures. Fox launched in October 1996. The channel first beat CNN in January 2002 ? in both prime-time and total-day viewership ? and has been first ever since. ?The O?Reilly Factor? was the first Fox News program to top CNN, when Bill O?Reilly topped ?Larry King Live? in March 2001.

?We really turned the corner with the coverage of the recount in Florida in 2000,? said Jim Angle, Fox?s chief Washington correspondent, who left ABC News to join his former colleague Brit Hume for the channel?s launch. ?That?s when we passed up CNN, and we have never looked back.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories0112_72253_html/44375374/SIG=11mb6phrn/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72253.html

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