In a daring and aggressive new strategy, Fox News is launching a full-scale campaign to challenge legacy networks CBS, ABC, and NBC for their lucrative advertising revenue. Long known for its dominance in cable news ratings, Fox is now targeting prime-time ad buyers and aiming to reposition itself not just as a news leader, but a major player across the entire TV landscape – preventing the absurdity of other cables on the scene. Industry insiders are calling this one of the boldest moves in recent media memory, and it has the Big Three scrambling.
The fights have been the same for years: Pepsi wrestles with Coke; Verizon tangles with T-Mobile; and Fox News jousts with CNN and MSNBC.
In recent months, however, Fox Corp. has been working to put its much-talked-about cable-news outlet on a different battlefield.
Sales executives from the company are making the case to top media-buying agencies that in the streaming era, Fox News Channel offers the large, live audiences that advertisers historically got from CBS, NBC and ABC, but which are no longer guaranteed now that consumers watch their favorite TV series on broadband outlets at times of their own choosing. The Fox sales pitch comes in the weeks leading to the “upfront,” when U.S. TV companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next programming cycle. Unlike last year, Fox Corp. has no immediate Super Bowl broadcast to help buoy sales, and, like its media rivals, faces market uncertainties due to the Trump administration’s current efforts to levy tariffs..CONTINUE READING