FNC’s 10th: Marketing…
The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker writes about how marketing helped drive FNC’s success…
Fox News Channel has flourished mainly because of effective marketing. For decades, journalists have privately discussed whether their coverage is fair and balanced. Fox News Channel took the bold step of proclaiming itself fair and balanced. That’s chutzpah.
Other news organizations have watched Fox News with amazement and envy: If only we had our own slogan, maybe we too could share the Fox News gravy train.
Just look at the way local stations and newspapers try to market themselves with catchy phrases. In that way, Fox News revolutionized news. Like groupies, Fox News supporters can quote the channel’s successes in ratings and money, although the channel still runs far behind the audiences for the evening newscasts on NBC, CBS and ABC.
Fox News also brought bigger and bolder graphics to the news presentation; and it put bolder, more opinionated stars in prime time. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly will upstage CNN’s Larry King every time.
Maybe they should start marketing in Cablevision areas to make us all MAD AS ZELL that we won’t get FOX News on Cablevision starting on Sunday! Oh wait… nobody who has Cablevision cares if it’s dropped… if more people knew, they’d probably beg Cablevision to get rid of it in this area… so that’s probably why they buried it in some really small market newspapers.
Comment by Nobody — October 3, 2006 @ 12:21 am
People get crazed by the success of FNC, like somehody we know in this forum who becomes apoplectic at the sound of Fox thrashing everybody else. He is just slobbering with envy. How pathetic!
Anyway, Hal Boedeker has painted a good portrait of FNC as it thunders on to its 10th anniversary. It’s a glorious time to celebrate 10 unprecedented seasons, with more to come. I disagree, though, it’s slick advertising that
propelled its success - it’s the product, better than anything else on cable TV. Roger Ailes has everything to be proud of!
rolls on to its 10th year of
Comment by RGL — October 3, 2006 @ 5:32 am
You can’t build an empire on a slogan. Ailes has accomplished what others only dare to dream. He built FNC on an idea and understanding of what the American public wanted. I’m applauding Ailes’ courage to take a chance and listen to the American people.
Comment by Mel — October 3, 2006 @ 7:53 am
Marketing? Hardly. It’s the PR team that built this network.
Comment by Peter — October 3, 2006 @ 4:56 pm
He had a little luck as well. What luck? Well, he saw all this talent out there that wasn’t being utilized (O’Reilly, Hannity) or was being under-utilized (Greta) by CNN and the broadcast networks. MSNBC could have grabbed them up, but they didn’t. They tried to do it on the cheap; and they’re still paying for it. And the primetime public talent isn’t the only talent Ailes grabbed up. He’s got many daytime and behind the scenes people making it all work as well.
If the other news nets realize this, the picture could be different in another ten years. Some of Ailes’ talent will retire or get lazy, or want to move on to something else. But I agree with RGL: they (the other news nets) won’t get it. They think the reason FNC is successful is because of ideology and big-lipped women. They are blinded by their own spin.
Comment by erljr — October 3, 2006 @ 5:03 pm