back to article News Corp prez threatens to pull Fox TV off the air

In response to a New York appeals court ruling that upheld the right of media mogul Barry Diller's fledgling Aereo streaming service to continue to provide its subscribers with broadcast television content, News Corp.'s president and COO Chase Carey says he might turn Fox television into a subscription-only cable service. "If …

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  1. Thorne

    Considered it gets their advertising out to more viewers, they should be happy but instead greedy is the only emotion they feel.

    Going pay cable only reduces their customer base. These guys are so thick...

    1. Naughtyhorse

      Not so sure...

      Ordinarily you are absolutely correct, but fox news viewers are pretty much all 'category 5 morons' (thx bill) who go there knowing they will get what they want.

      stick it behind a paywall - they'll cough up just to be told they are right and the godless commie moslem is taking the world to hell in a hand basket.

      look at what glen beck did after being dropped by fox. An odious cretin by all accounts, but doing rather well out of his subscription service.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      "Going pay cable only reduces their customer base."

      We can but hope....

  2. solidsoup
    WTF?

    I'm just surprised there are enough people willing to pay Aereo for the load of ads and crappy content that is US broadcast TV.

  3. pete 22
    Happy

    *please*

    *please* pull Fox, oh please....

    1. Dan Beshear
      Thumb Up

      Re: *please*

      Please Murdoch, pull, like your father should have.

  4. Don Jefe
    Alert

    Tool

    I love how his first two solutions to the problem were lawyers then politicians: ONLY when those two options failed did he resort to a business solution for his business problem.

    That kind of thinking has much to do with how screwed up our legal and political systems are.

    1. Jolyon Smith
      Pint

      Re: Tool

      I love how his first two solutions to the problem were lawyers then politicians: ONLY when those two options failed did he resort to a business solution for his business problem.

      That kind of thinking has much to do with how screwed up our business leaders are.

      There. I fixed it for ya.

      1. Uffish

        Re: Tool

        I am much heartened by the fact that the first two options didn't manage to do what News Corp wanted.

  5. RAMChYLD
    Trollface

    Just do it Fox

    Do us the favor and pull your disinformation-spreading garbage of a channel off the air.

    We won't miss The Simpsons, really. The show has been getting a little too long in the nail now.

  6. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    There's a book about that: Blown to Bits

    Just reading a very interesting book on the topic. Called Blown to Bits, and available as a free download, perhaps making their own point that copyright is dying the big death. The relevant part to this article is how copyright is being used to PREVENT innovation by distorting the market in favor of whoever is fastest in bribing the politicians.

    Most businesspeople are fine and upstanding, etc. The problem is that the current system in America is one where the LEAST ethical businessmen bribe the CHEAPEST professional politicians to write the WORST laws. Every large American company is obliged to become more and more evil as quickly as possible just to survive.

    Sun is an example of what happens to a company that tries to resist the evil, and the google and Apple are leading 'successful' examples of the need to be more evil.

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Don Jefe
      Stop

      I'm aggressively conservative & I would rejoice in seeing Fox voluntarily remove itself from normal broadcast. They obfuscate real issues with social issues and take advantage of the uneducated by fooling them into thinking that Jesus, Jews, vaginas and things that come out of vaginas are somehow government concerns.

    2. ThomH

      That's called confirmation bias. There's a risk that the programming on a network that shares a brand with a deeply conservative news channel might become less easy to obtain. Of those comments that are politically motivated, which side of the spectrum are they likely to come from?

      You might also benefit from looking up the contrapositive.

    3. Killraven
      FAIL

      I find that most close-minded people start turning things into a battle of labels instead of actually trying to defend themselves with facts.

    4. Naughtyhorse

      methinks redneck cant afford cable

      boo hoo

      sucker

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        "methinks redneck cant afford cable"

        Nah. They'll just have to cook up more crystal meth to pay for it.

    5. Wade Burchette

      @biandewei,

      It is not just liberals. And that is the problem. Both sides clearly do not see that they are closed-minded and therefore compromise becomes impossible. They become entrenched in their beliefs and attack the other side. Nobody likes to be attacked, so the result is the other side becomes more entrenched. Neither liberals nor conservatives are willing to listen, just attack. And we all lose as a result.

  8. Daniel B.
    Go

    Nice!

    Getting rid of the garbage in open TV can only be seen as an improvement. By now even conservatives are thinking FOX is full o' dung news.

  9. tkioz
    FAIL

    God...

    I hope they pull their 'content' off the air.

  10. Cliff

    TV exec doesn't get own way, throws toys out of the pram

    Who fucking cares, really?

    Cheap stroppy/pseudobullying tactics are childish tantrums, can't say I'm personally bothered in the least. Something WILL fill any void left, might even be something less mental.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The pussy foot.

    How many times has Fox threatened to leave or go pay channel? Is this the 3rd in just 10 years, or is the number higher? We all hope Fox goes away, but they just won't balls up enough to do it.

    Roger Ailes put Fox in the shitter, now someone just needs to flush.

  12. William Donelson
    FAIL

    Faux News

    Faux News' average viewer age is 65 and rising. Guess why!

    Good riddance.

    1. cortland

      Re: Faux News

      Hey! MY age is 65+ and rising ( I hope) and I don't watch Fox. I threw out my television decades ago. MPAA and RIAA can, well, let that go; I buy used CD's and eschew films. Entertainment Industry? Seriously?

  13. Neoc
    Unhappy

    NOOOOOoooo.....

    If FOX goes of the air, where will The Daily Show get most of its fodder from?

    Disclosure: I am an Australian and I watch The Daily Show (and The Colbert Report) as I find it gives me a better sense of what is going on in the USA than most of the "official" news channels. And I get to giggle insanely at the same time.

    1. FrankAlphaXII

      Re: NOOOOOoooo.....

      Hell, alot of Americans watch those two shows for the exact same reason, you're far from the only person. They're funny but they both cover topics that the mainstream outlets are loathe to cover.

    2. Naughtyhorse

      Re: NOOOOOoooo.....

      could you really imagine a true genius and shinning light of the right thinking right such as bill oriley cutting himself off from 'his people' by being on cable?

      never

      jon will always have at least this oaf to mock

  14. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    I've never watched Fox News

    I probably never will.

    They can do whatever they like.

  15. Fihart

    "The end of free TV ?"

    To steal Yahoo's headline, the threat from Fox and other majors to foil Aereo may prove the death of off-the-air broadcasting. To be replaced by a subscription model or the new technologies.

    Given the poor TV reception in many areas of US, given content aimed at people who respond to the fast food and beer ads the programmes are riddled with, the wider public has already given up on TV.

    Even twenty years ago when I lived there, almost nobody I knew even switched on TV. The trend has now reached the UK. The overdose of ads, particularly on secondary channels that appeared with the advent of Freeview, is killing the medium.

    1. FrankAlphaXII
      Thumb Down

      Re: "The end of free TV ?"

      20 years is a long time. The public are still as hooked on Television as they were when you were here, anyone who thinks that people have given up on TV is deluding themselves.

      The means available to view it have changed, but for the most part even that has stayed the same, most people have Cable/IPTV or Satellite and view it live.

      The only time reception is poor is when someone is too cheap to rent a cable box and pay a sub fee. I know literally no one who doesn't have a subscription TV service of some sort, even in a major metropolitan market, having at the maximum 13 or so channels just simply isn't acceptable, even if you only watch TV for news and more high-brow programming like myself.

      Premium channels are a different story, I have no need to see the same shit on HBO over and over and I'm not a fan of Game of Thrones, at least not enough to shell out 20 bucks a month for one single program. And I'm pretty sure that Murdoch wants to make his stuff premium.

      It isn't worth it, and noone will pay to see his garbage except die hard GOP supporters that worship every tiny, god awful piece of shit that Murdoch and company make trickle out because otherwise its supporting Obammy, that damn uppity terrorist supporting queer non-citizen communist muslim athiest black* who never learned his place and thinks he's President.

      Seriously now though, The last person I knew that used an Aerial for anything other than DXing FM radio from other markets was my grandfather....in 1988!

      (*I'd use what they generally call him, in case you're wondering it rhymes with "bigger", but Id rather not have my post deleted or be banned)

      1. John G Imrie
        Joke

        Re: "The end of free TV ?"

        Those GOP supporters call Obammer 'Tigger'. A. A. Milne mus be spinning in his grave.

      2. Elmer Phud
        FAIL

        Re: "The end of free TV ?"

        Oh, when will the Citizens of Rock Ridge ever grow up.

        The new sheriff is a Ni ... , now get over it.

        " Obammy, that damn uppity terrorist supporting queer non-citizen communist muslim athiest black* who never learned his place and thinks he's President."

  16. FrankAlphaXII

    As long as they take their "News" with them....

    I couldn't really care any less.

    Fox is a god awful network that cancels their best shows (Alien Nation, Space: Above and Beyond, Millennium, Firefly, Fringe, and so on) yet keeps rehashed crap like the modern "Simpsons" on the air. Their news would be laughable and is to an extent but since idiots like my wife's grandparents take it seriously its fairly dangerous as these people really believe the hate-mongering half-truths that Faux News presents as fact without questioning it. They also get super pissed off when you do question it and back up your assertions with verifiable facts. They hate the idea of unbiased factually accurate statements. If you're a brave soul, go read the bullshit on their forums. They make Daily Fail readers/commentards seem kind and respectable, relatively speaking of course.

    Anyway, when they go sub only and all of five people and their respective trailer parks sign up for it, not only will Ted Turner laugh so uncontrollably they'll give him an hour on CNN just for that, the rest of the real networks will laugh as well.

    Murdoch likes having it both ways though, and because everyone knows multi-billionaire criminals are so persecuted, or *gasp* held to account under laws, he'll probably be the first to bitch that Comcast, Disney, Turner, and CBS are running a cartel of liberal bias and the unthinking simpletons on the right in the public and in congress believe every word he and his droids have to say, so they'll waste a fuckton of money on yet another pointless and powerless congressional blue ribbon panel.

  17. Killraven

    Opinion vs Fact

    "Aereo is stealing our signal," said Carey at NAB. "We believe in our legal rights, we're going to pursue those legal rights fully and completely, and we believe we'll prevail."

    The fact is, now according to two different courts, that it is NOT theft, and Fox does not have the "rights" that Mr. Carey thinks they do.

    I think that this falls, solidly, into the category of "I dare you".

  18. Clockworkseer

    And Nothing of Value Was Lost.

    1. John G Imrie

      After Fox went off the air in 2013

      There was a massive bounce back in the US economy, and how the US thought of itself, as people rediscovered the art of communication and left their homes blinking in the sunlight..

      (c) Wikipedia 2020

      1. beep54
        Coat

        Re: After Fox went off the air in 2013

        Oddly enough, I think that sums up a particular Simpson's episode....

  19. MondoMan
    Pirate

    Thank goodness for right-thinking scribes!

    Rik is of course right in his belief that the less Fox News content available to the unwashed masses, the better. Otherwise, who knows what uppity mischief they might get up to, given that someone slipped up and gave them the vote!

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Thank goodness for right-thinking scribes!

      No, removal of Fox News would be a positive benefit, given that their viewers are in fact less informed than people who watch NO NEWS AT ALL:

      http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5

      1. MondoMan

        Re: study goodness

        If you actually looked into that study, you might not be so eager to control what others have access to. Assuming you're into actual evidence and facts and that sort of thing...

        1. Daniel B.
          Facepalm

          Re: study goodness

          Shit that passes as news is worse than no news at all, which is kind of the point of that study.

          Only stupid people and rabid bible-thumping Conservatards actually believe Fox News actually says "teh truth". Murdoch is basically the 21st century Citizen Kane / Hearst. The kind of people that believe Fox News are the same that call Newsweek "Newsweak" because they don't believe in the retarded stupidity they do.

          Hell. Maybe the problem isn't actually Fox News at all ... it is that there are people out there stupid/crazy enough to believe the stuff they put out!

  20. johnwerneken
    Trollface

    Steal All Intangible Property - oops, there is NO SUCH THING!

    How can anyone claim to own a signal? It has been BROADCAST. It's just like Impotent Impropriety - Intellectual Piracy - whatever that stupid phrase is, a name for a non-existent thing. There is no such thing as intangible property, it's an oxymoron. Just because millions of people want to believe something - or even EVERY person - does not make it real. And no LAW can make real what is not. Nor can any government do more than kill us all - we can not be forced to admit that there is such a thing as legitimate authority, except where such a thing may actually exist - maybe in a lifeboat going over Niagara, or under enemy fire, but not in too many other places.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once again

    I'll make my usual prediction that free to air TV is DOOMED, I SAY, DOOMED!

  22. mfritz0
    Alien

    In a perfect world

    In a perfect world FOX tv would be banned from the air! All it does is supply garbage and lies to the public to help dumb it down and frankly in my humble opinion, the fewer people affected by it's immense ignorance the better. Who needs em? Nobody!

  23. LinkOfHyrule
    Paris Hilton

    Pics or didnt happen!

    I want to see the room full of tiny telly aerials!

    1. John G Imrie

      tiny telly aerials!

      Is this some new Reg unit of volume?

    2. beep54
      Meh

      Re: Pics or didnt happen!

      Guessing it would be like the pit of hypo needles in that Saw movie.... Or not.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps they need pursue the avenue

    Of making sure there are really less subscribers than antennae?

    then they'd have a case to appeal

  25. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    I don't get it.

    If you stick up an antenna, receives a Fox signal and view that on your telly, Fox are OK with that. Yes?

    If someone else sticks up an antenna and you view the signal from that on your telly, Fox have a problem. Yes?

    So, if you get someone else to stick up your own antenna, is that OK? What if that antenna isn't on your property (e.g. on the communal roof of a block of flats)?

    How long does the piece of wire between your telly and the antenna have to be and how many people have to be involved in putting up the antenna to piss off Fox? Is the fact that the wire is or is not contiguous throughout the signal path an issue? What about one piece of wire with a signal booster in it?

    Next point. Apparently the fact that whoever's doing this is providing one antenna per telly is the bit that makes it OK. So, what about communal antennas (i.e. that same block of flats with one aerial on the top and the signal piped into all the flats)? Is that now not legal?

    Maybe I'm just missing the point completely and trying to find logic in rabid arsehattery?

  26. g e
    Holmes

    "Aereo is stealing our signal"

    That's akin to saying a photographer is stealing your light.

    So don't broadcast, then. PLEASE. Do the photographic equivalent of living in a cave.

    Oh, you already do? Kill yourself then, Fox. Yes. definitely. That's the solution. Or stop behaving like an inconvenienced five year old. Yes, unlikely, I know.

  27. Archivist

    Rearrange

    Pram; Toys; Throw; Out of

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > "our signal"

    Don't fire your modulated stream of photons through my house and my body if you don't want me to stop some of them and inspect them.

  29. ADRM
    FAIL

    FOX TV

    Please go away and Take Murdoch with you. I am sure someone would love your unused broadcast spectrum and provide us with higher quality crap.

  30. Tom 13

    I'd expect the judge's ruling to be appealed and overturned.

    Re-broadcasting is illegal, period. Home viewers are permitted to make copies for personal use. This is all well established US law.

    1. James R Grinter

      Re: I'd expect the judge's ruling to be appealed and overturned.

      that's the point of the tiny-antenna approach though. They're not re-broadcasting: they're receiving a signal on a single aerial, and sending it to the single customer over a long (through the internet) "piece of wire".

      They're not even sharing the aerial, like a communal one on a block of flats (which is very common here in the UK). They're also not sending the transmission to customers outside of the area it could be received in.

  31. Sit in the Middle

    Typical

    Typical Left Wing comment in the last sentence of this article top get in a cheap shot instead of doing what he is SUPPOSED to do, which is report, not share with us his personal view. What has this gas bag "reporter ever done? The heavily Liberal, Left Wing Media just cannot help themselves. In some respects, the comment is a high honor because it shows that Fox and other more fair media outlets who work towards being balanced continue to get under the liberal media's skin. Keep it up Fox.

    1. kyza

      Re: Typical

      Troll or real?

      I can't work it out. I know there are some people who are so astonishingly dense they think that Faux is in some way 'balanced' reporting (you know, balance is when Bill O'Reilly says a black Columbia U professor looks like a crack dealer), but do you actually believe what you've written here in a real and serious way?

    2. John G Imrie
      Trollface

      Re: Typical

      One post. Joined today. Must try harder.

      1. Vic

        Re: Typical

        > Must try harder.

        ITYM "ODFO" ...

        Vic.

    3. Daniel B.
      Trollface

      Re: Typical

      START PARSER

      "Typical Left Wing"

      FOX CONSERVATARD DETECTED

      It's kinda awesome to see how the first three words in a given comment give away that it comes from a typical US Conservatard. I could probably set up a Bayesian filter to detect 'em, hell, even a simple filter like searching

      - Obama AND Muslim

      - "liberals" in quotation

      - Liberals, with capitalized L

      - Left Wing

      - MSM or Main Stream Media (variations thereof)

      - liberal media

      Fun to run this game!

  32. JimBobJohnny
    FAIL

    FOX ≠ FOX News

    It is amazing how many people do not realize that FOX and FOX News are NOT the same channel. FOX News is a cable/satellite channel only - you cannot receive it OTA. FOX on the other hand, is a broadcast channel that can be received OTA using an antenna as well as received on cable/satellite. What they are talking about is changing the FOX OTA broadcast channel into a cable/satellite only channel (like A&E, NatGeo, TLC, Discovery, etc.) Would be a dumb decision for sure but they are free to make dumb decisions if they so desire.

    Bottom line is this has absolutely nothing to do with FOX News at all.

    1. Dan Beshear
      Holmes

      Re: FOX ≠ FOX News

      It would be a really stupid decision, because Fox itself owns many of its larger-market TV stations, like KDFW Dallas, KTTV in Los Angeles, and oddly enough WNYW in New York. Either these stations go dark, or Fox has to BUY content for these television stations.

      Back to Blazing Saddles references: The Sheriff has a gun to his own head, yelling "Nobody moves, or the n***** gets it!" And the citizens of Rock Ridge are too stupid to call his bluff.

  33. Nate Amsden

    not fox news

    El reg has it wrong here. Fox news is not what they are talking about, that channel is already a cable channel, and not available OTA (well maybe it is in NYC, though I doubt it). They are referring to the fox affiliates. You know Simpsons, Family guy, and other fox programming on the local FOX TV channels, which are available over this new service.

    Looking at my local Fox affiliate I don't notice too much stuff that looks to be Fox specific content, at the most it seems like on average a couple shows a day. The rest is syndicated from other networks or stuff that looks more generic like daytime talk shows.

  34. Oninoshiko
    Stop

    Why are you all talking about fox news?

    This is about fox's entertainment channels. They broadcast almost no news or news-like content. They broadcast things like Family Guy and The Simpsons. (I leave sorting the value of those as an exercise to the reader)

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Why are you all talking about fox news?

      Unlike the Big Three, FOX (the broadcast network) does not televise a nightly news show. They leave that duty to the local stations.

    2. Vic

      Re: Why are you all talking about fox news?

      > They broadcast things like Family Guy and The Simpsons.

      You forgot "Shovin' Buddies" ...

      Vic.

  35. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    Will probably remain free to air in China.

    After all Rupert is a man the Party can do business with.

  36. JaitcH
    FAIL

    What's Fox?

    Just another Murdoch outflt spreading his conservative/extreme right trash.

    The spare spectrum will come in handy for real uses.

  37. TeeCee Gold badge

    Of course.....

    .....the real cause here is that cable companies currently pay for the privilege of streaming FTA channels over their wire and this solution is a cheesy (if rather cunning) way of getting around that.

    I've been waiting for some time for an enterprising cable co to produce a box with an aerial socket, integrate the cable and FTA stations into one user-friendly planner interface at the consumer's house, rather than streaming the FTA signals themselves and stick two fingers up at the TV companies.

    Can't quite see how the FTA lads could object to that one.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Of course.....

      It's a trade-off. If they don't charge the cable companies, then they can COMPEL the cable companies to carry their stations (the "Must-Carry" rule). That rule can't be used if they insist on a carry agreement (the kind that cable companies have to pay).

      As for the cable box, most of them are built by big names (think Motorola), and I'm pretty sure the Big Boys put pressure on them NOT to add aerial ports (Digital Satellite Boxes originally HAD to have them because there wasn't bandwidth enough for all the local stations; once the room was made, out went the aerial port).

  38. Adrian Midgley 1
    Happy

    good

    The less the better.

  39. teebie

    "I swear to god, if you don't give me what I want I will *make the world a better place*" says the TV exec

  40. Steve 129
    Alert

    Idle threat?

    I always thought that a threat worked best when there was a down side for the person being threatened !!??

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