John Corn
12-02-02, 05:12 AM
Fox Entertainment Group will announce a new extreme sports and lifestyle channel at BroadbandPlus: The New Western Show that it has quietly pitched to cable operators.
It may be months before the new channel gets on the air, but it most likely will have the widespread cable system carriage it needs to succeed, since Fox can drive a hard bargain, negotiating with its booming branded cable franchises in news, regional sports and entertainment.
But there is more to Fox's newfound might with the cable industry than meets the eye.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, whose company is 85 percent owner of Fox, and his top lieutenants -- including Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Lachlan Murdoch -- have spent the past year building a three-pronged defense strategy to make their companies less vulnerable to the whims of television's ultimate gatekeepers. Fox is a premier content provider, and cable operators are desperate for new ways to abate the slide in basic subscribers despite the scarcity of space for new programming channels. But that alone is not enough.
Full Story (http://www.emonline.com/topstorys/120202fox.html)
It may be months before the new channel gets on the air, but it most likely will have the widespread cable system carriage it needs to succeed, since Fox can drive a hard bargain, negotiating with its booming branded cable franchises in news, regional sports and entertainment.
But there is more to Fox's newfound might with the cable industry than meets the eye.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, whose company is 85 percent owner of Fox, and his top lieutenants -- including Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Lachlan Murdoch -- have spent the past year building a three-pronged defense strategy to make their companies less vulnerable to the whims of television's ultimate gatekeepers. Fox is a premier content provider, and cable operators are desperate for new ways to abate the slide in basic subscribers despite the scarcity of space for new programming channels. But that alone is not enough.
Full Story (http://www.emonline.com/topstorys/120202fox.html)