Fox News Channel, Americancable television news and political commentary channel launched in 1996. The network operated under the umbrella of the Fox Entertainment Group, the film and television division ofRupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox (formerlyNews Corporation).

Having experienced success with hisFox Broadcasting Company, Murdoch sought to expand his presence in the American television market. After an attempt to purchase the 24-hour cable news networkCNN failed, Murdoch endeavoured to create his own cable news channel. He enlisted television producer and formerRepublican political consultantRoger Ailes to oversee the new network, and Ailes’s business acumen and political leanings became closely associated with its eventual success.

The initial hurdle for the fledgling cable network was to obtain “carriage” (distribution) on the numerous local and regional cable systems. It was routine for cable companies to pay networks such asHBO orMTV for the right to broadcast their content, but Murdoch reversed the equation, paying cable providers to carry Fox News. As a result, when the network first took to the airwaves on October 7, 1996, it was viewable in more than 17 million homes.

Billing itself as the “fair and balanced” alternative to a media environment that it characterized as having a liberal bias (another slogan was “We Report. You Decide.”), Fox News debuted with a lineup of anchors that included Neil Cavuto andTony Snow. It was the network’s opinion programming, however, that became most closely associated with the Fox News brand.Bill O’Reilly’sThe O’Reilly Report (1996–98, continued asThe O’Reilly Factor 1998–17) served as a showcase for O’Reilly’s confrontational interviewing style, and it was consistently the network’s top-rated program.Hannity and Colmes (1996–2009) featured conservativeSean Hannity and liberalAlan Colmes debating the news and issues of the day. The morning news and celebrity gossip programFox & Friends debuted in 1998 and soon became a fixture in the Fox News lineup.Glenn Beck, a relative latecomer to the network, scored ratings success with his eponymous talk show;Glenn Beck (2009–11) showcased Beck’s penchant for theatricality, and his criticisms of Pres.Barack Obama—most notably on such issues as Obama’s signature health care reform bill, thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010)—echoed many of the stated principles of theTea Party movement. Other notable hosts includedMegyn Kelly, who joined the channel in 2004 as a legal pundit and was later given her own show, the popularThe Kelly File (2013–17).

In the battle for viewers in the cable news market, Fox News made steady gains against CNN, which had the advantage of being viewable in several million more homes, and againstMSNBC, which had been launched several months before Fox News. In the wake of theSeptember 11 attacks, cable television viewership surged, and Fox News built on its gains to surpass CNN for the first time in January 2002—a lead it would retain throughout the decade.

Despite its claim to be “fair and balanced,” Fox News forged strong links with many leaders in the Republican Party and in the conservative political establishment. The network’s roster of high-profile Republican commentators was impressive: at times it included 2008 vice presidential nomineeSarah Palin, former speaker of the House of RepresentativesNewt Gingrich, 2008 and 2016 presidential contenderMike Huckabee, and 2012 and 2016 presidential contenderRick Santorum;Oliver North, who rose to fame during theIran-Contra hearings in the 1980s, and former representativeJohn Kasich, who would be elected governor of Ohio in 2010, also hosted shows on Fox. Fox News also supported the aspirations of theTea Party movement. The channel’s political leanings came under heavy scrutiny in 2010 when News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. In 2013 Fox News was transferred, along with other Fox Entertainment Group holdings, to21st Century Fox when News Corporation split into separate media and publishing entities.

The arrival ofDonald Trump on the political scene saw the rise of new opinion stars at Fox News.Tucker Carlson began hostingTucker Carlson Tonight in 2016, and the following yearThe Ingraham Angle debuted, hosted byLaura Ingraham. The shows were highly popular, and both Carlson and Ingraham became known for espousing views that frequently dovetailed with those of President Trump. On the other hand, the lead anchor of the news division,Shepard Smith, who had started with that division in 1996, found that his coverage of theWhite House was increasingly at odds with views expressed on the opinion shows. In 2019, after Carlson mocked him on-air and Trump made his displeasure with Smith’s newscasts known, Smith resigned.

Gretchen Carlson, a former host on Fox News, filed asexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes in July 2016. In addition to the allegations against him, she also claimed pervasive sexism at the channel. During an internal review, other women reportedly also accused Ailes of harassment. He denied the allegations but resigned later that month. In September 2016, 21st Century Fox announced that the lawsuit had been settled—for a reported $20 million—and issued a public apology to Carlson. Around this time Fox dropped its “fair and balanced” slogan to mark its transition to a post-Ailes era; the tagline was replaced by “most watched, most trusted.”

In 2017The New York Times reported that a number of sexual harassment lawsuits against O’Reilly had been settled for more than $10 million. Although the Fox host denied any wrongdoing, he left the channel shortly thereafter.

In 2019 Rupert Murdoch finalized the sale of most of the holdings of 21st Century Fox, including the movie studio 20th Century Fox, to theDisney Company for some $71 billion. He madeLachlan Murdoch chief executive of the new Fox Corporation, the parent company of the Fox News Channel, a move that appeared to put his son in line to succeed him.James Murdoch, who had been donating to liberal causes, resigned from News Corp. after the sale, saying in a letter that he had “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.”

As head of Fox Corporation, Lachlan Murdoch oversaw the Fox News Channel’s agreement in 2023 to pay $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s continual airing of false claims that the company had rigged voting machines to help defeat then U.S. Pres.Donald Trump in thepresidential election of 2020. After the settlement, Murdoch claimed that Fox News had merely been acting as a news organization by reporting on newsworthy events.

In September 2023 Rupert Murdoch, who was then 92 years old, announced that he would soon retire from the boards of directors of both Fox Corporation and News Corp., which would leave the then 52-year-oldLachlan Murdoch in charge of both companies. Although the younger Murdoch was less outwardly political, his father said in a note to employees that he expected his son to maintain the Fox News Channel’s conservative bent: “My father firmly believed in freedom, and Lachlan is absolutely committed to the cause.”

In September 2025, the Murdoch family reached an agreement after a bitter succession battle that ensured Lachlan would have control of the family’s key media outlets after Rupert Murdoch’s death. The $3.3 billion deal – reached months after a bid to essentially disinherit three of Rupert Murdoch’s children – Prue, Liz, and James was blocked by a court – insures Lachlan Murdoch’s control of the media empire until at least 2050. It also insures that Rupert Murdoch’s goal of insuring the continuation of what he has built and called the “protector of the conservative voice in the English-language world.”