NEW YORK -- As the most powerful man in the universe, or one of them anyway, Roger Ailes can look back on the first 15 years of his crowning achievement, Fox News Channel, with satisfaction. And he does.
It was way back in February 1996 that, at the behest of News Corp. chieftain Rupert Murdoch, Ailes began creating from scratch an all-news network to challenge the venerable CNN as well as upstart MSNBC, which was set to launch that July.
"It was a risky move," Ailes recalls, and not just for News Corp., whose $900 million or so would bankroll the venture. Fox News Channel was also risky for Ailes himself, who, then 55, was a communications guru of legendary savvy – a former Republican media strategist, TV producer and, until his abrupt resignation in January 1996, the head of CNBC and creator of another cable network, America's Talking, that was being sacrificed to free up room for MSNBC.
It was way back in February 1996 that, at the behest of News Corp. chieftain Rupert Murdoch, Ailes began creating from scratch an all-news network to challenge the venerable CNN as well as upstart MSNBC, which was set to launch that July.
"It was a risky move," Ailes recalls, and not just for News Corp., whose $900 million or so would bankroll the venture. Fox News Channel was also risky for Ailes himself, who, then 55, was a communications guru of legendary savvy – a former Republican media strategist, TV producer and, until his abrupt resignation in January 1996, the head of CNBC and creator of another cable network, America's Talking, that was being sacrificed to free up room for MSNBC.
"I realized at my age that if I screwed up, or it didn't work, I'd probably never work again," says Ailes. "You just don't go out when you're over 55 years of age, have a colossal failure and expect to find work in your field again.
source huffingtonpost"That was on my mind," he confides, then pauses half-a-beat. "For a half-hour. Then I said, `I'll make it work.'"
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