Why Is Fox News Off the Air in the UK?
by EG
Fox News is hot in America, but in the UK it's struggled to build an audience. British regulators are also a little tougher than American watchdogs, it turns out, when it comes to fake news and political bias. All of that has led the network to stop operating in the UK, a major blow to Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
With 21st Century Fox pulling the plug on Fox News in the U.K., where pay TV giant Sky had been carrying its U.S. version for over a decade, on Tuesday, the network once again made headlines.
It was a familiar sight as analysts said Fox News in recent years often attracted attention from media and critics of the Murdoch family, which controls Fox, in Britain despite its small TV audiences in the country.
U.K. media regulator Ofcom has in recent years criticized Fox News for breaching the British TV code several times.
That was why some observers wondered if Fox's bid to buy the 61 percent stake in pay TV giant Sky, which it doesn't already own, also played into the decision to shutter the Fox News U.K. feed. After all, the U.K. government is expected to announce the next step in the review of the deal within the next two weeks.
"Timing of the announcement is, of course, the interesting feature," Enders Analysis analyst Toby Syfret tells THR, highlighting that Fox, of course, said the decision to end the U.K. feed of Fox News was purely a business decision. "However much 21st Century Fox (or the Murdochs) may play down the issue and insist the decision has nothing to do with the takeover bid, friends, the detached and critics alike cannot but make the connection. But the decision does make sense from a commercial perspective."
Asked what it means for the Sky deal, Syfret says: "It cannot harm the bid - indeed, [it] may help a little – from the regulatory perspective regarding the question of broadcasting standards; though I cannot see it affecting the plurality issue and related competition concerns."
Here is a look at a few cases, in which Ofcom criticized Fox News for falling short of the U.K. TV code.
Muslims in Birmingham
Comments made by a pundit on Fox News in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in early 2015 were met with ridicule on social media and led to complaints, which the regulator investigated. Ofcom ended up rapping the network for what it called a "serious breach" of the British TV code.
Terrorism expert Steve Emerson had told Justice With Judge Jeanine host Jeanine Pirro that the British city of Birmingham was "totally Muslim," calling it a place "where non-Muslims just simply don't go in."
Even then-Prime Minister David Cameron got involved, saying that Emerson was "clearly an idiot." Fox News apologized days later for the "serious factual error," while Emerson himself later acknowledged that he had made a "terrible error."
Ofcom found Fox News to be in "serious breach for a current affairs program," saying it had "presented the audience with materially misleading facts."
Trump Bias?
During routine monitoring of networks, the U.K. regulator found bias in Fox News' U.S. presidential election coverage in the summer of 2016, citing three August episodes of Sean Hannity’s Hannity. Fox News denied being pro-Republican and pro-Donald Trump, but Ofcom ruled that the flagship show didn’t offer Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s perspective with "due weight."
Ofcom emphasized that Britain's guidelines for "due impartiality" don’t require shows to give equal time for different views, but they do require “adequate or appropriate” time. OfCom flagged the problems “during routine monitoring” of broadcasts.
It said that three episodes of the show “included a number of highly critical statements” about Clinton, including Trump calling her refugee plan “insane” and a claims that she was “the queen of corruption” and “reckless and crooked." And Ofcom said that the episodes included "various statements that could be described as supporting the policies of Donald Trump,” including Hannity listing positive things Trump would do if elected.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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