Fox News

Fox News is a general news channel broadcast primarily for a US audience, but is also viewable worldwide via the resources of News Corp's broadcasting presence in many countries, including the UK, on Sky Digital.  Fox News broadcasts business news updates throughout the day, and has a one hour business programme which airs at 4pm ET called Your World, with Neil Cavuto.

The channel was launched on October 7th, 1996 to around 17 million cable subscribers and slowly rose to prominence in the late 1990's, challenging CNN's dominance in the marketplace. In terms of regular viewers (Nielsen Ratings), Fox News now rates as the United States' number one cable news network. Some critics and observers of the channel say that Fox News Channel promotes conservative political positions. The Fox News Channel publicly denies any bias in the channel's reporting.

The British Influence

Prior to founding the Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch had gained significant experience in the 24-hour news business when News Corp.'s BSkyB subsidiary started Europe's first 24-hour news channel, Sky News, in the United Kingdom in 1989.  With the success of his rapidly expanding 'fourth' network efforts in the United States, set up to challenge the dominance of NBC, CBS and ABC, coupled with the experience gained from Sky News, and the turnaround of 20th Century Fox, Murdoch announced on January 31, 1996 that News Corp. would be launching a 24-hour news channel.  He announced that it was his intention to air his new news channel on both cable and satellite systems as part of a News Corp. "worldwide platform" for Fox programming, reasoning that "The appetite for news - particularly news that explains to people how it affects them - is expanding enormously."

The New York - Time Warner Legal Battle

To accelerate its adoption by cable companies, Fox News paid systems up to $11 per subscriber to distribute the network. This contrasted with the normal practice, in which cable operators paid stations carriage fees for the programming of channels. When Time Warner bought out Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting, a federal antitrust consent decree required Time Warner to carry a second all-news channel in addition to its own CNN. Time Warner selected another relatively new player in the 24 hour news market, MSNBC as the secondary news network, instead of Fox News. Fox News claimed that 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 pressured Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration to pressure Time Warner, one of the city's two cable providers, to transmit Fox News on a city-owned channel.  City officials threatened to take action affecting Time Warner's cable franchises in the city.

A lawsuit was filed by Time Warner against the City of New York claiming undue interference with, and inappropriate use of, the city's educational channels for commercial programming. News Corporation countered with an antitrust lawsuit against Time Warner for unfairly protecting CNN. This led to an acrimonious battle between Murdoch and Turner, with Turner publicly comparing Murdoch to Adolf Hitler while Murdoch's New York Post ran an editorial questioning Turner's sanity. Giuliani's motives were also questioned, as his wife was a producer at Murdoch-owned WNYW-TV. In the end, Time Warner and News Corporation signed a settlement agreement to permit Fox News to be carried on New York City cable system beginning in October 1997, and on all of Time Warner's cable systems by 2001, though Time Warner still does not carry Fox News in all areas. In return, Time Warner was given some rights to News Corporation's satellites in Asia and Europe to distribute Time Warner programming, would receive the normal compensation per subscriber paid to cable operators, and News Corporation would not object to the continuation of Atlanta Braves baseball games being carried on TBS (which could have expired because of the Fox television network's contract with Major League Baseball).

High Definition

Fox News Channel HD is 720p high definition simulcast of Fox News Channel that launched on May 1, 2008. Most of the programs available in HD (Fox & Friends, America's Newsroom, Happening Now, The Live Desk, Studio B with Sheppard Smith, Glenn Beck, Special Report with Bret Baier, Fox Report, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and On the Record with Greta Van Sustersen) are shown in 16:9 widescreen. For the shows broadcast in SD, Stylized pillarboxes are used.

Fox News Material and Archives

The Fox News Channel maintains and active archive of its footage and exclusive materials.  Keeping with Fox News' british connections, licensing of Fox News material is handled by ITN Source, a division of the London based newsgathering organisation, Independent Television News (ITN).

Business Programming

One hour each weekday is dedicated to business programming in the form of the show "Your World" with the managing editor of the Fox Business Network, Neil Cavuto.  The show, aired as the closing bell rings on the New York Stock Exchange discusses the days economic news and events.  During the day, Fox News features on-screen stock market updates, and also reports any big financial news or market moves as part of its regular programming.