Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Fox News Channel launched on the 7th of October 1996 with 17 million cable subscribers. The network deliberately excluded the two largest media markets in the United States, which were New York City and Los Angeles, at the time of its launch.
Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes founded the Fox News Channel to create a counterweight to what they perceived as a liberal bias in establishment journalism. They hired Roger Ailes, a former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive, to build a 24-hour news channel that would appeal directly to a conservative audience.
The network originally used the slogan Fair and Balanced, which was coined by Roger Ailes, before phasing it out in favor of Most Watched, Most Trusted in 2016. In March 2018, the network introduced a new ad campaign called Real News. Real Honest Opinion to promote its opinion-based programming.
During the 2004 United States presidential election, the Fox News Channel was markedly more hostile in its coverage of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and helped launch the Tea Party movement. In the 2016 presidential election, the network remade itself into the image of Donald Trump under his presidency, with hardly any criticism of Trump heard on its prime-time shows.
Donald Trump provided significant access to the Fox News Channel during his presidency, giving 19 interviews to the channel while only 6 in total to other news channels by November 2017. The relationship soured following the 2020 United States presidential election when Trump refused to concede that Joe Biden had been elected President-elect.
Suzanne Scott has been the CEO of the Fox News Channel since 2018, and Lachlan Murdoch secured control of the network in September 2025. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan and provides service to 86 countries and territories.