Comment from Peter Saxon
I’m looking forward to watching the second episode of Stan’s latest offering, The Loudest Voice.
It stars Russell Crowe as the brilliant and corpulent haemophiliac Roger Ailes who was shunted out of CNN under a cloud of inappropriate behaviour involvong an unspecified number of female staff. He was given a hefty payout and, despite a tight non-compete clause, found a way around it to join Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and help start up a new player, to be called Fox News, in an already overcrowded US cable news market.
Early action takes place in 1995, a year out from launch. A group of senior executives, mostly Australians, including Ian Rae, Rupert Murdoch’s close confidant who has already been anointed Executive Vice President – Fox News, are gathered in a meeting room to discuss what Fox News will look like.
With a Power Point clicker in hand, a woman who looks a lot like Julie Bishop and sounds like her too is doing the presentation. “CNN represents the old,” she proclaims. “They’re stuck in the 1980’s. Fox News will be programmed for the ‘90s – fast, loud, edgy, tabloid TV.”
Sitting next to Murdoch, Ian Rae chimes in: “It’s based on a very similar concept to A Current Affair, Rupert. And draws on the strengths of The Post and The Sun.”
Murdoch seems pleased, “Sounds good to me Gents.” And then turns to Roger Ailes for his opinion.
Ailes looks at the woman with the Power Point and asks, “One question: Who is your audience?”
She replies, “Everyone. We want to reach the widest audience possible.”
I could hear the astute readers of radioinfo, especially those in the content business, cry “WRONG!” as soon as she said it.
Indeed, Ailes’ rejoinder is, “Well, I think that’s wrong. You don’t need everyone. Your problem is that you’re talking broadcast. Cable is different. Cable is about one thing and that is niche. The loyalty of a passionate few. We need to program directly to the viewer who is pre-disposed to what we’re trying to sell.”
“And what is that niche?” Asks Ms Power Point, 1995.
“I think it’s conservative – which is roughly half the country,” says Ailes.
One senses that if the playing field had have been different and CNN had have been a conservative news outlet and it was a progressive audience that had been under-catered for, then Ailes would have given Fox News a very different outlook.
While all that may be new to the average viewer, or go over their heads entirely, to the broadcast professional it suggests that Fox News’ conservative agenda has less to do with the owner’s politics than it has with making money. After all, Fox also broadcasts The Simpsons, one of the longest running and most left leaning programs on television.
The latest episode, which will stream on Stan from 2pm today, will cover how Ailes and his crew took Fox News to new heights following 9/11.
Peter Saxon
One remark and one question.
Remark:
If you saw the movie "Vice" about former US VP Mr Richard Cheney, removing any theatrical licence, it was Mr Cheney who advised US President Mr Nixon to drop the requirement that broadcasters discuss both sides of a story. Amongst the other presidential advisers was a younger Mr Roger Ailes. The author of this article postulates that if CNN was 'conservative' then "Fox News" may have taken a "non-conservative" view.
It follows that a broadcaster's particular narrative, whether 'conservative' or 'non-conservative' is constructed in order to fulfil the market for a particular kind of listener/viewer.
Then one has to question whether the presenters at a particular radio network have to take a particular narrative. A hint of this is in Mike Carlton's book "On Air" where Mike Carlton (at 2UE) refused the request by upper management to take a 'right-wing' approach to news. Here is a hypothetical question. Would 2GB employ 'non-conservative'/progressive articulate and intelligent commentators such as David Marr or Van Badham?
Question:
There has been a big promotion of the series "The Loudest Voice" on radio. But the issue is that in order to watch the series, one has to subscribe to an IP streaming service in order to view the series. I don't want to subscribe for movies or series that I am not interested.
I would like to know if there will be a dvd release of "The Loudest Voice". I'll be one of the first to buy.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting Belfield
As I said in July 2019, I would like to know of the DVD release of "The Loudest Voice".
The series is available on DVD from December 10-12. While you can order in Australia for AU$68 on ebay, I ordered it for US$33 = AU$52 including postage from a US site.
There are three DVDs in the package.
The caveats:
* The DVD is encoded for region 1 (US) playback. Your DVD player must be able to play region 1 discs such as a multi-region DVD player.
* If you are still using an analogue TV, your analogue TV must be able to display the US NTSC signal. Before the analogue switch-off, Australia was using the PAL system, but there may well be analogue TVs which can play PAL (Australia), NTSC(US) and even SECAM (France).
* Please pedants, don't enumerate variations of the PAL, NTSC and SECAM systems, it is irrelevant. This DVD package is in US NTSC.
Thank you,
Anthony of up-to-date Belfield
Looking forward to viewing the series and playing it to my heart's content. The series "The Loudest Voice" will definitely complement the story in the movie "Vice" where Roger Ailes' career started as a political adviser.