Fox News takes on Radio

You know those 4 minute new updates on the top and bottom of the hour on your radio? The one where the newsreader reads the news of the day that sounds completely different from the host you were listening to the other 26 minutes. Well, if Roger Ailes has his way, that will be changing. Fox News Radio is making inroads into the radio news market.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Having risen to the top of the cable television news pack, Fox News is now setting its sights on an expanded presence in radio.

Fox News Radio, which celebrated its second anniversary April 1, offers hourly news updates and breaking-news coverage to more than 300 stations nationwide, along with two weekday talk programs, “The Tony Snow Show” and “The Alan Colmes Show.”

While Fox News gets a lot of ink with the success of its cable TV channel and recently with its plans to start a financial news channel that would take on CNBC, Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes said last week that radio and the Internet were among the company’s growth priorities.

“I don’t think there’s a natural ceiling to what Fox News can do,” Ailes said in an appearance Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington.

That’s certainly true for Fox News Radio, which continues to grow under the radar in what is for some radio companies a tough business. Two years ago, the network started with one-minute newscasts every hour from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays on 56 stations.

Now it’s 24/7 and poised to grow even more than the 300 stations it has as affiliates now. An additional 100 stations owned by Clear Channel Radio are due to take news from Fox News this year. Fox News estimates the radio service reaches more than 10 million people a week.

Living near a major city, I rarely hear the canned news reports on the radio, but when I do, it sets my teeth on edge. The tone and snarkiness in these reports towards anything to the right is palatable. They could get away with it when there was no competition. But with Fox News Radio in the picture, hopefully this will also change.