Fox News removed from Sky

Yes, that and the power grab by Erdogan. It's going from a secular democracy to a non secular dictatorship

You are correct, noggin. Wrong word choice by me. Thanks for pointing it out.

I understand all the arguments about the opinion based news being very unsavory, particularly for UK audiences, but I still think it's a loss. I enjoyed watching what American's watch, and seeing how FOX can spin bad news from the White House. I regularly watched Fox & Friends if not at work, just to get a gauge of what American's are watching (because I'm interested). I knew, for example, how bad things were getting for Trump when Shepherd Smith started criticising him.

From a presentation perspective, it's also fascinating. Like some sort of time capsule. I regret not being able to see how the look is going to be developed after their long time Creative Director had left the network.

For me, a home news network is way more interesting than the raft of internationally focused news channels. Luckily CNN look to be quietly replacing their international output with more US based content, and it's in HD!

I'm fine with it, as long as it's correctly and clearly labelled as an opinion channel, not a news channel.

FNC is not hard to find online, there's someone streaming the network on YouTube as I type.

Despite what we think about news channels and their agendas, they are here to stay. Unless broadcasters are in violation of broadcasting rules and regulations, there is very little we can do. If you don't like the fact that some stations steer clear of certain issues or try to present a view point you don't agree with, then change channel. It isn't difficult to do, it takes you less than 5 seconds, and you have enough choice.

The US still does have libel laws, but you rarely hear of them being utilised. Our courts see far more activity on the libel front than American courts do.



Not totally true. Murdoch saw the opportunity to create a Conservative news network, and he hired Ailes to realise that vision. Ailes was always the head of Fox News and had a lot of influence over the product, after all he'd launched America's Talking and headed up CNBC, but Murdoch always had the final say. On the agenda side, I'd say that was a collaborative effort between Ailes and Murdoch.

There is so much wrong here.

First off, I'm not sure that news channels are here to stay. In 10 or 20 years time, television will be a much different animal than it is now, especially as we continue to see the growth of on-demand television. I suspect that news channels will be considered an outdated format before too long, and we'll see them disappear into obscurity. I also suspect that television news will substantially change and longer form news programmes will eventually disappear from TV. Look at radio in this country, only BBC Radio 4 does long form bulletins anymore, commercial radio has almost entirely dropped the idea. The longest bulletin you have now is Heart Nightly News airing on selected Heart stations in areas such as Cornwall, Wales, Yorkshire and Scotland, which are 10 minutes. Outside of those, you'll be hard pressed to find a bulletin on commercial radio anymore longer than 3 minutes.

Your point about choosing to not watch channels we don't like completely misses the point. It's actually not about whether we like a channel or not, that doesn't even factor into the thinking here. It's about whether a channel is being factual or merely spreading propaganda. I don't even have a problem with Fox being right wing, I have a problem with it blatantly lying to the audience. Many right wing broadcasters and publishers in recent years have begun a process of denying actual facts, and trying to present their own opinions as actual facts, rather than as the opinions they are. It's like the whole birther conspiracy. Obama was born in Hawaii. That's a fact, that was actually confirmed by local newspapers in Hawaii on the day after he was born. Official birth notices for every baby in Hawaii were actually published in Hawaiian newspapers daily back then. It's hard fact. The whole Kenyan thing was an attempt to deligitimise a black man being elected to the White House, because they believed that a balck man shouldn't be elected to the office of President, Pure racism was the motive, and anybody who had a modicum of intelligence saw right through it.

It's one thing to selectively choose to report stories that promote your agenda. It's quite another to completely make stuff up. To the best of my knowledge, CCTV/CGTN, RT and Press TV and others, do not routinely make up stories to promote their agendas, where as Fox News, and the sources they used, such as the Cybercast News Service, did that routinely, multiple times a day.

I would argue that news channels are less endangered by on-demand TV than many other television formats. People can -- and increasingly do -- watch sitcoms, dramas, or reality shows on demand, but when big (or even medium-sized) stories break, they often seek out a live stream of news and analysis, and news channels provide that fairly effectively.

It's a format that is remarkably profitable in the U.S., booming in emerging markets such as India, and doing well in mid-sized countries such as France (case in point: BFM TV, which is going from strength to strength). I don't foresee the demise of news channels anytime soon.

Where US news channels in general have changed to the internet world is adapting their formats to be more opinionated. CNN (US) and MSNBC are nothing like they were twenty years ago. HLN's Morning Express is as close to the old style rolling news format, but they now pad out their output with pre-recorded nonsense in prime-time with limited news hours.

Sky have dipped their toe into opinionated programming over the years which has largely failed.

Potent comments from Ed Millibean... [Sic]

“This decision shows the Murdochs panicking about their bid for Sky. It amounts to an admission that despite having broadcast here year after year, Fox News is not fit for UK broadcasting in the standards and ethics of its journalism. It’s yet more proof that the Murdochs can’t be trusted to own 100% of Sky.

“Stopping broadcasting in the UK changes nothing. Fox News in the US is the Murdochs’ channel, they are responsible for its broadcasting standards and the appalling racial and sexual harassment that happened on their watch. The Murdochs can’t run from their record at Fox News.”

The format in the US though isn't really news, it's more news talk, rather than news. CNN is closer to an actual news channel than Fox News or MSNBC are, even though MSNBC has cut back on their opinion content somewhat. Local TV in the US is where the basic news channel format survives, and even then, it's not 24 hours a day. I would say the days of 24 hour news anywhere are numbered. It will eventually become a focused service around key viewing times with additional factual or information programming filling up the schedule around the bulletins.