Roger Ailes Fights Back...

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Hollywood Reporter:

Roger Ailes, like his Fox News Channel, is as divisive as he is successful. The chairman and CEO of the de facto victor in cable news' ratings war, whose colorful professional past includes a tenure as a talk-show producer (The Mike Douglas Show) and decades as a political consultant (presidential campaigns for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush), built his 21st Century Fox network into Rupert Murdoch's most profitable property. Fox News' subscription revenue continues to climb, rising to 94 cents a month per customer in 2013 for an estimated $1.1 billion -- making FNC No. 6 among cable networks, according to SNL Kagan. Competitors CNN and MSNBC have been forced to duke it out for a distant second place for the past 13 years, something Ailes credits to his openness to change. But change isn't what FNC is known for -- at least not until October, when Ailes raised eyebrows by overhauling his primetime lineup for the first time in a decade. The pairing of conservative-leaning Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity was split up by the addition of Megyn Kelly in an effort to stem the challenges of an aging TV audience.

At 73, the Ohio native shows no interest in retiring. Outside his day-to-day running of FNC, sister channel Fox Business Network and the Fox Television Stations Group, he has a weekend residence in Garrison, N.Y., with wife Elizabeth and 14-year-old son Zachary. A fervent newshound, he bought local paper Putnam County News and Recorder in 2009. Ailes remained characteristically silent throughout months of rumors leading up to the FNC revamp but agreed to a sit-down with THR in December, speaking in his modestly attired office on the second floor of the News Corp. building.

PHOTOS: Inside Roger Ailes' Fox News Suite

Though he declined to comment on the split from longtime PR exec Brian Lewis, he did briefly explain why he opted to not participate in an unauthorized biography by Gabriel Sherman. Warm and droll for a man often vilified by Hollywood liberals, he also opened up about his competition, recent talent acquisitions (Maria Bartiromo, Elisabeth Hasselbeck), the staying power of the Tea Party and his desire to launch a new history channel with O'Reilly.

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Roger Ailes unleashed.

[Valin]

Ailes chides cable news rivals
Howard Kurtz
January 08, 2014

(Snip)

In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, the Fox News chairman declares victory over his cable competitors, says he “hated” his time as a political consultant and that he brought back Sarah Palin as a contributor “to give her a chance to say her piece and piss off the people that wanted her dead.”

(Snip)