You're Likely Funding Fox News (Even If You Don't Want To)

The following is part of a post by Dan Rather:

Fox is a loud and disciplined machine. It almost always speaks with one voice on any given topic. It has been convincing Americans 24/7 that even if they are doing ok, the economy is actually in tatters and the only person who can fix it is Trump — even if by any objective measure the US. economy under Trump was far worse.

Can a steady diet of Fox News alter one’s perception? You bet. The New York Times’snews surveys editor explained, “100 percent of the Republicans in our poll who said they got their news from Fox News or other conservative sources said they intended to support Mr. Trump in the general election. This stands in contrast to Republicans whose main media sources are outlets like CNN and major news organizations. 79 percent of them plan to vote for Mr. Trump, and 13 percent said they planned to vote for President Biden.”

Ironically, you and I are paying for this partisan and duplicitous media machine, whether we like it or not. If you’re a subscriber to almost any cable or satellite TV package, you’re funding Fox.

Yes, the organization that wakes up every day with the goal of demonizing Democrats in general and Joe Biden in particular is funded in a very bipartisan way. 

Fox is making billions from cable subscriber fees. It reportedly gets about $2 a month per subscriber. The mouth of the MAGA movement has long been bundled with other channels by all the big cable outfits, so even if you don’t want to pay for Fox, you have no choice. 

But things have taken a financial turn for Fox of late. Its penchant for falsehoods has cost the Murdochs. Dominion Voting Systems is now $787 million richer after a settlement with Fox over its lies and crazy conspiracy theories about Dominion’s voting machines. Add to that the loss of Tucker Carlson and what was the highest-rated show on the network. 

But don’t you worry about Fox’s bottom line. The media giant can and likely will ask for an increase in carriage fees in their next contract. One more dollar a month would mean hundreds of millions more for Murdoch. Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters for America, explains, “The impact of Dominion’s lawsuit was always going to be limited because of Fox’s ultimate weapon: cable carriage fees. The dirty secret about Fox News is that it is one of the only commercial TV channels that doesn’t need a single advertisement to be profitable, if not the only one. In fact, Fox could have zero dollars in ad revenue and still have at least a 35% profit margin. This is the result of carriage fees and the guaranteed revenue they provide Fox.”