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Fox employees are confident the Biden years will be good for the network, and they are not losing sleep over the prospect of “Trump TV,” according to multiple company sources.
But some observers think they should to be concerned. It’s possible that the outgoing president could damage the Fox brand and drive away disillusioned viewers if he starts his own media company. It is possible that the right-wing media map, long controlled by Fox, is on the verge of balkanization.
Then again, he also watched Fox, tweeted quotes from supportive commentators, and sought advice from Fox’s 9pm host Sean Hannity.
Here’s the best way to interpret what’s going on: Trump and Fox patriarch Rupert Murdoch has had a corporate marriage of convenience for five years. Trump is threatening to go their separate ways, but Fox has already been through many difficult times.
The question now is what Trump might do after he leaves. A Trump-branded streaming service seems more likely than a “Trump TV” cable channel. But almost anything is possible: a radio show hosted by Trump, an extension of current Trump campaign webcasts, or a licensing deal with a company like Newsmax.
What about a “Donald Trump Tonight” talk show on Fox? Is this out of the question?
The answer is no, at least not entirely. There are almost always parts that could be moved. For example: Hannity has been with Fox for almost 25 years now. Maybe he could retire and let Trump take his place.
But for now, Trump is getting angry about network coverage. So here’s a viewer guide for the months to come.
The roots of the relationship
He has since had the same carrot-and-stick approach: congratulating his Fox supporters – rewarding them with interviews, Twitter takes, and White House visits – all while complaining about Fox dissidents.
Murdoch used to vocally criticize Trump’s conduct. The media mogul wrote on Twitter in the summer of 2015: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?”
But Murdoch made his peace with Trump as the Republican primary field narrowed and Trump won the nomination. He didn’t think Trump would beat Hillary Clinton in the general election, but when Trump did, Murdoch achieved what a family friend later called a “detente.”
The media marriage was visible to everyone on television. Fox touted Trump and he touted the network. The Murdochs took advantage of it while Trump benefited from Fox’s promotion and propaganda.
Who has the power?
“People think he’s calling ‘Fox & Friends’ and telling us what to say. Hell no. He’s the opposite,” the former producer said. “we say him what to say.”
This bragging view is supported by a scroll from Trump’s Twitter feed, which shows that he often starts his day by watching “Friends” and repeating what they said on TV.
Trump’s fixation on Fox News was a major theme of his presidency. He hired people from Fox, fired people because of Fox, and gave most of his national television interviews to Fox. Sometimes it was hard to tell where Trump ended and where Fox started. But even with this close relationship, he was still prone to sending nasty tweets whenever he didn’t like something on the network. Fox executives generally ignored his complaints. They believed that they, and not the president, had the power.
It is important to recognize that Fox has a near monopoly position in right-wing television. The network’s audiences are extraordinarily loyal, as demonstrated in late 2016 and early 2017 when three of Fox’s biggest stars – Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly and Greta van Susteren – all left in a period. nine months, and the grades roughly stayed the same.
For many TV players, the lesson was that, on Fox at least, everyone is replaceable. Does this lesson also apply to Trump?
In some ways, he’s Fox’s biggest star for the past five years. But now his presidential broadcast is ending.
Trump might think Fox needs his star power, and at the margin, it’s true that Trump’s appearances and interviews are right-wing audience boosters. But the network was No. 1 long before he became a politician.
As sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote in her 2016 book “Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right,” about Tea Party supporters in Louisiana, Fox News stands beside the industry , the government of the state, the Church and the regular media as an additional pillar of its own political culture. “
“To some,” she explained, “Fox is family.”
It takes more than a tweet from Trump to convince people to abandon their families.
The fox can be vulnerable
Nonetheless, Trump could try to dissolve this media marriage.
In line with his past hits on Fox news coverage, he wrote on Thursday that “@FoxNews daytime ratings have completely slumped. Daytime weekends, even worse.”
Fox’s daytime ratings look somewhat weak this week, but that’s no surprise, as Biden’s victory is interpreted as bad news by Fox’s base.
The network is also feeling pressure from the far right, from channels such as Newsmax, which blames Fox for projecting Biden’s victory in Arizona and calling Biden the president-elect.
Newsmax’s ratings have skyrocketed in recent days, but Fox is still head and shoulders above all of his challengers.
Trump’s tweet Thursday continued, “Very sad to see this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot about the Golden Goose. The biggest difference between the 2016 and 2020 elections, it was @ FoxNews! “
Trump has made similar accusations against Fox throughout the 2020 campaign.
But his claim that he was Fox’s “Golden Goose” doesn’t match. The network has been growing steadily for years, thanks to a loyal following that is wary of most other national media. Stars like Hannity encourage and deepen this alienation every day by attacking what he calls “fake” news.
Sources inside Fox predicted that Trump would return to normalcy and congratulate the network’s opinion leaders in a day or two. Earlier this week, he posted numerous videos from Fox and Newsmax’s pro-Trump shows.
A subscription-based streaming service would allow it to convert rally participants into paying customers and compete with Fox at the same time.
A Fox insider questioned that idea, however, pointing out that Trump is old-fashioned – he’s obsessed with big-screen TV, not new streaming apps.
When I was working on my book, a friend of the Murdoch family told me about the relationship between Trump and Fox: “There was something for them both. At the end of the day, business trumps ideology. . Business trumps principle. “
Whatever he decides to do, the months ahead will go a long way to answering a two-sided question: Does Fox need Trump more or does Trump need Fox more?
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