Tsummer of an odd-numbered year may be a slow time for politics, but the same isn’t true for the world of cable news. Indeed, each of the cable news giants seems to be re-imagining itself, changing personnel, and jockeying for position in the run-up to the ratings-gold 2016 campaign season.
Critics think Fox News is inching toward the center. CNN is desperate to reinvent itself. MSNBC, liberal as ever, has seen its ratings tumble. And a new cable news player could upend them all.
The biggest shake up of the summer is at Fox News, where star Megyn Kelly will get the coveted 9 p.m. weekday slot currently occupied by conservative talker Sean Hannity. The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Daily attributed this switch to “the Darwinian dynamics of demographics and ratings.” Daily included this about Fox News boss Roger Ailes’ guarded explanation:
Ailes reaffirmed that “Megyn has earned a better time period. She’ll be in our primetime lineup.”… But Ailes was downright vague about Hannity. He “is a brand that many of our viewers [italics added] love and want to see. And he’s also … probably the nicest guy in the building.” A case of damning with faint praise? It’s doubtful that nice guys finish first in Roger Ailes’ hyper-competitive world. [The Daily Beast]
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.