Fox News Cable Network Analysis - Case Study Example

Analysis and Report of Fox News Cable Network Fox news is a general news cable network channel that broadcasts news events on medium such as television, radio and or internet when it comes to online journalism. By 2011, Fox News increased the use of interaction components in its broadcasting but was still not at par with its competitors such as CNN. As a resolving strategy, by 2011, Fox News focused on business and financial new as a manner to gain numbers. In addition to that, Fox News also incorporated financial news channels, although its competitors such as CNBC maintained their standards to still remain the better rivals in the cable network industry. According to the PEW research centre’s project for excellence in journalism, the revenue of Fox News grew by 27% and in parallel to that it managed to cut its losses by $ 19 million. Other cable news channels such as Bloomberg’s revenues increased by 14% and its profits by 25%, CNBC on the other hand revenue increased by 6% to $ 725 million. Fox News came as a business changer where when they entered the cable news network scene, their aim was to redefine business news for Americans who were faced with trouble some financial decisions; this is the gap that Fox business Network came into the market to fill. In addition to that, Chris Roush, a renowned professor in the field of journalism at the University of North Carolina added that Fox Business News intended to target Middle America. This involved people who are majorly faced with issues such as saving money or even the knowledge on market trends and which is the best and right time to partake investments. They "intend to target Middle America," said Chris Roush. The format that Fox News uses is also multidimensional. They focus on aspects of news such as hot seat debates, talk shows and political news, financial and also journalism news. According to the Fox News Insider, Fox News captures all forms of information. For example the battle between Democrats and republican is detailed and titled as “The Fight Over Sequestration”. Another one would be “Will Obama Take Responsibility for the Sequester?” Debate news is another strong hold for Fox News. According to the Washington post, Fox News managed to become a winner in these kinds of debates. Political orientation and Fox News are quite inseparable. Fox news also handles political debates especially in America. Their style is quite bold and cautious. Fox news seeks to advocate for real time and factual information. In a post from Fox News website, titled “Why would anybody own a gun?” Fox News tends to be bolder. This title leaves suspense to the readers and this is what people are looking for. Thus the more reader views into their website thus more popularity. According to Cable News Demographics of 2010, the regular audiences for Fox News channel are persons over the age of 55 years who are approximately 70%. The rest are persons between 35 and 54 years with a 24% and the next category is for the age bracket of 18 to 34 years with an approximated 5%, while the remaining 2%. In addition to the survey, male watch more television than women with an approximated 54% and the remaining 46% are women. Fox News distinguishes itself from other Cable news network’s through its unique strategy of opinion programming and prime time ratings. They have their own way that they use so as to gain numbers in opinions and viewer choice. Summary of Fox new strategy: To gain market numbers, Fox implemented the use of interactive viewing and a vast variety of web applications and video content. Fox has certainly not fully utilized web content as compared to its rivals such as CNN. In addition to that the same in inter twined with opinion programming such as political debates in America. This has led to the increase in prime time ratings which have shown significant progress as compared to its competitors such as CNN and MSNBC. Thus this has increased popularity to Fox News and its viewer ratings. Fox has managed to be the best at focussing on what competitors are not focussing on. Competitive strengths and competitive weaknesses of your assigned network. Relative to the competition, consider the advertiser and subscriber/viewer markets, as well as possible cost advantages your network may have. These include: Some of the weakness that Fox has encountered is keeping up with technology and increasing web traffic to their website. Web applications keep changing every day thus keeping up with the competitors method of adopting these technologies is quite challenging to compete with the titans such as CNN. The adopting of mobile devices has been a challenge to Fox News. According to a report on The State of the News Media 2012 by PEW Research Centre Project for Excellence in Journalism, an excerpt by DW from the “essay” on cable news network strategy stated that CNN mobile advances have been significant and they have also adopted the use of tablets. In addition to that, according to another PEJ report, a survey was conducted and it pointed out that CNN digital coverage averaged 19.4 million new users per month as compared to its competitors such as Fox. This clearly shows that CNN has invested heavily on web applications for example Zite (magazine like application) so as to attract its customers and grow its numbers. Compared to Fox, the costs for investing in this kind of digital content could make them dig into their pockets way much deeper. Some of the strengths of Fox include the fact that they implement conservative-leaning talk and opinion in prime time. This is according to a report on The State of the News Media 2012 by PEW Research Centre Project for Excellence in Journalism, an excerpt by DW from the “essay” on cable news network strategy. According to the Washington post, Rodger Allies stated that Fox News prime time is undisputable. He added that other competitors have changed their line up programs just to try and be as competitive as them. Secondly, their marketing strategy with cable companies was unique. According to a report on The State of the News Media 2012 by PEW Research Centre Project for Excellence in Journalism, an excerpt by DW from the “essay” on cable news network strategy, it states that Fox gained carriage by paying cable systems a onetime fee of 10$ per subscriber thus in the long run it was able to demand higher fees from cable subscribers. This in turn made it gain popularity for better licence fees. Thirdly, another success factor is in their use of opinion programming. This led to the increase in prime time ratings which have shown significant progress as compared to its competitors such as CNN and MSNBC. Lastly, according to revenue review by SNL Kagan which is a division of SL Financial LC, some of the estimated revenue estimates are portrayed in the following manner, where Fox news has significantly and steadily increased its revenue from 2003 until 2012 to a last record of 1705.5 million dollars as compared to CNN whose last recorder revenue of 2012 was 1362.9 million dollars. Works Cited “Fox Business Network Debuts”.MONEYWATCH.CBSNEWS, 25 February 2013. Web “The Fight Over Sequestration”. FOXNEWS INSIDER. 25 February 2013. Web “Will Obama Take Responsibility for the Sequester”. FOXNEWS INSIDER. 25 February 2013. Web Krauthammer Charles. "Why would anybody not own a gun?” Web. Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/06/senate-dems-may-sink-obamas-second- term-strategy/ Holcomb, Jesse., Mitchell Amy., and Tom Rosenstiel. The State of the News Media 2012 PEW Research Centre Project for Excellence in Journalism: Excerpt by DW from the “essay” on cable news network strategy, 2012.Print. pp 55-62 McCarthy, Ellen., Farhi, Paul. The Washington Post: How Fox News changed the face of journalism. 14 october 2011. Web. Retrieved from: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-10-14/lifestyle/35278688_1_roger-ailes-fox- news-channel-cnn-and-msnbc PEW Research Centre for the People & the Press: In changing News Landscape, Even Television is vulnerable. Trends in News Consumption: 1991-2012. 27 September 2012. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/in-changing- news-landscape-even-television-is-vulnerable/ Selected viewer profiles from the 2007 Mendelssohn affluent survey: Revenue by networks Total net . Chapter 3. pp 7-14. Print. Read More