Fox News: Palm Trees in Madison, WI

Can't we all just negotiate along?

 

I will agree with the "cheap" side of the "back of the house" with FOX.

From their national operations to their local affiliates, their newsrooms generally pay the lowest in each market. Some of the locals are those high-channel UHF deals that carry the minimum amount of news (half hour at 10 ET) to keep the affiliation with the network that has Idol, Glee and the NFC.

When you look at FNC, they pay a ton of money to O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Shep Smith, Megyn Kelly. The market bears out that they should be paid as they have the ratings on their side.

However, they also write checks for Palin, Gingrich (until recently as he may run), Karl Rove, Dennis Miller, Juan Williams. Those are regular contributors who don't work for free.

Even with those high ratings, esp for O'Reilly, FNC has to balance the costs. From a production angle, the FNC Graphics look cheap, the music doesn't sound "high end". They skimp behind the scenes.

Whereas, MSNBC and even CNN have graphics more pleasing to the eye but they don't have viewers and I couldn't tell you who hosts their evening shows.

 

Aside from its political slant, Fox News is basically the ultimate extension of the business plan of all TV news, to wit: Pay some on-camera people big money and cut every other corner in sight. Attract an audience by presenting material designed to terrify the already-frightened old people who are basically the only people left who watch TV news of any kind. Sell patent medicine and drug advertising, along with the occasional financial services (read: estate planning and tax avoidance services) ad.