Where do you get your news from? Is it Squawk Box? How about the Today Show? Or is it Fox News? If it’s the latter, you may already be familiar with the news organization but if it’s not, you’ll know everything you need to know about the channel by the end of this article.
Credited with being a conservative news conglomerate, Fox News is the premier conservative news provider delivering breaking news and political content through its broadcast programming, website, and even Twitter.
For more information on how this news broadcast grew to be the most-watched news program and for more information on Fox News’ logo and branding, keep reading below.
Meet Fox News
If NBC or CNN are you’re favorite news broadcasters, you may not be as familiar with Fox News – that’s okay though. Fox News has been around since 1996 and was started after Robert Murdoch had a big idea.
His idea was a plan for a tailored news channel that focused on delivering conservative news. As Murdoch launched Fox News, he needed a CEO and turned to Roger Ailes of MSNBC. When the channel was first founded, the programming included short shows that took up 30-minute blocks of programming, where each show was focused on a different topic.
When the channel was launched, 17 million households subscribed and the earliest shows included Schneider Report, O’Reilly Factor, and the Crier Report.
Since its founding, the channel has only continued to evolve. Today, Fox News broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and provides not only breaking news, and business and political news, coverage, but also broader coverage on topics in the tech, health, lifestyle, and weather spaces as well news across other realms.
The Evolution of Fox News
1985 – 1996: The early planning of Fox News
Even though Fox News was launched in the United States, Rupert Murdoch wasn’t from the States. Originally from Australia, Rupert Murdoch came to America with a big idea to shake up the news broadcast world.
To set these wheels in motion, Murdoch purchased six broadcast stations owned by Metromedia and purchased 50% of Fox Filmed Entertainment. After gaining experience in this industry in the United Kingdom, he took what he learned to establish Fox News, a 24-hour news broadcast available in the United States.
His other dream for Fox News was for the station to become the top conservative news provider.
1996-2001: Fox News’ early days
Before launching Fox News, Murdoch brought on Roger Ailes as CEO. Ailes came to Fox News from MSNBC where he served as an executive and media consultant to former Republican presidents. In the early days of Fox News, the channel reached more than 17 million televisions.
To drive this viewership, Fox News stayed true to its plan to provide conservative, opinion news. Some of the first shows that were featured on the channel were Bill O’Reilly’s, The O’Reilly Report (later becoming The O’Reilly Factor), Hannity and Colmes, and Glenn Beck. By 2000 viewership surged more than 400% after the Presidential elections and by the next year, in 2001, Fox Broadcasting had 197 affiliated stations. The following year, Fox News blew past CNN’s ratings for the first time.
2001: Fox News’ reporting of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
It’s important to note how Fox News stayed on top of the breaking news with 9/11 because it was a first for the broadcast industry. Fox News was the first network to play a running “ticker” at the bottom of the news screen. Nowadays, breaking news tickers are so common it’s hard to remember when they didn’t exist. This ticker allowed viewers to get every possible news update related to the attacks, including the news that didn’t make it on-air by reporters.
2016-2018: A new wave of Fox News leadership
After Roger Ailes received countless sexual harassment allegations, he resigned from his CEO role. In the aftermath of his resignation, Murdoch served as acting CEO. During his interim oversight, Suzanne Scott began to prove herself as a viable candidate.
Suzanne started as an executive assistant at CNBC before working at Fox News in 1996 as a programming assistant. From there., she moved on to a series of roles, including Executive Vice President of Programming in 2016. In 2018, Scott was officially named the new CEO of Fox News and Fox Business Network and began to continue her work in turning the network around post-Ailes.
2018-Today: Fox News has become America’s favorite news
Today, Fox News has grown to be one of the leading news networks in the states and is broadcast to more than 85 countries.
The network still provides programming in favor of conservatives and Republicans, but that is what sells for this channel. Once 2022’s numbers were finalized, the final numbers indicated that for the 7th consecutive year, Fox News was the most watched news broadcast.
Roadblocks Along the Way
From sexual harassment in the workspace to administration conflicts, to false media claims, Fox News has been no stranger to the spotlight. While some may say all press is good press, that wasn’t always the case for Fox News.
The channel’s ratings declined at times, but what the organization found was that because of the channel’s radical reporting, viewership returned. There were few other channels and programming focused on conservative reporting in favor of the Republican party.
As a result, even during some of Fox News’ darkest days of controversy, viewers still turned to Fox News’ to get their daily digest of news.
The Meaning of Fox News’ Logo and Fox News’ Logo History
1990-1996: The first version of the Fox News logo
Before Fox News was launched, the channel began to think about what logo might accompany Fox News’ programming. This first design is what future logos were inspired from, highlighting the power that comes with thinking about your brand identity with your company’s development. This design played around with shapes that future logo iterations built off. The logo featured a bold wordmark in white that sat on a black background. The letters in “Fox” were capitalized, along with the “N” in “News.” The word “channel” sat in a rectangle-like shape and behind the Fox News wordmark was a linear drawing of the world and two beams of light.
1996-2002: The second version of the Fox News logo
Once the channel was launched in 1996 Fox News launched a new logo.. This logo featured three colors, red, white, and black. This first iteration was broken into two parts, a black square shape, and a red rectangle. In the black square was the channel wordmark. This lettering was intentionally bold and uppercase, reminiscent of a professional news font. To the right of the white wordmark were two beams of light and arcing across the black rectangle was a thin red lin. The red rectangle was much simpler. The only element of the logo that sat in this part of the logo was a lowercase bold font that read “channel.” Rather than have each letter practically touching, the letters in this word were evenly spaced out.
2002-2017: The third version of the Fox News logo
In 2002, Fox News decided to revamp its logo design again. The changes to this logo design were minimal. This design removed the black coloring, replacing it with blue. Other updates to this third iteration were that the red arc was removed and the “C” in “channel” was now capitalized.
2017-Today: The fourth (and current) version of the Fox News logo
After 15 years of using the third logo design, Fox News’ logo received some minimal updates yet again. The shape of the logo remained the same, but changes were made to the coloring, font, and lines. The red became darker, the blue became brighter, the “C” in “channel” returned to being lowercase, and all the letters in the word “channel” were placed closer together. One final update to this current logo design is the reappearance of the thin arch behind the wordmark and beams of light, this time in white though.
Fox News’ logo font:
Many news organizations choose a bold font to display their channel name, helping to establish themselves as a professional news organization, that catches your attention. For Fox News, this was no different. Using FF Good OT Black as inspiration, the logo design team could adapt the font to best suit the broadcast industry.
Fox News’ logo color:
The logo that you’ll encounter at Fox News today features red, white, and blue. Known to be a conservative American news channel, it feels fitting that the logo colors are the patriotic colors found on the American flag.
These colors are often used together to symbolize harmony and balance, which are things any news organization hopes to represent with its reporting. Additionally, these colors are used together to represent trust. By using this color combination, Fox News is hoping to be the trusted news provider its viewers want.
Fox News’ logo symbols:
On the Fox News logo are two symbols. The first are two beams of light like the beams coming from a spotlight. This symbol is representative of the industry Fox News operates in, the media broadcast industry. These beams symbolize how Fox News’ will cover stories from different angles and will shine the spotlight where needed, at the forefront.
The second symbol is the arch. This is representative of the world and the mission of news organizations to cover news anywhere in the world, as long as it is news. Furthermore, the world which appeared in the first, second, and current logo, represents a new beginning of news reporting with Fox News.
Fox News Today
Fox News is an American multinational organization that is today owned by Fox Corporation and is headquartered in New York City. Fox News is known to many as a resource for conservative news and political commentary, beyond reporting on a wide array of other topics.
Coming off of a television ratings high in 2022, Fox News started the new year as the top broadcast news station, clocking in the most views. These numbers correlate to direct profit with Fox News being responsible for nearly 70% of Fox News Media’s pre-tax earnings. While there are many shows across Fox News, the most-watched shows in recent years that have helped these figures are The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and Jesse Watters Primetime.
As of 2018, Suzanne Scott has served as the CEO of Fox News, only the third CEO Fox News has seen. She’s been featured on the Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, but the biggest accolade to her name is helping to turn Fox News around after the Roger Ailes scandal.
While Fox News is commonly associated with the United States, viewers can catch this station in more than 80 other countries.
Lessons Learned from Fox News’ Logo
Since 1996 there have not been many versions of the Fox News logo which leads us to believe that what Fox News has done works. The brand is one that thought early about its logo design, thinking about it even before the channel was launched. The logo design itself was minimal but had symbolic elements that tied back to the brand.
The most important parts of the logo stood out – the “Fox News” wordmark, and the beams of light. Together these two components symbolize what the channel’s name was and what the station was focused on doing.
Additionally, the color choices were intentional, further representing the kind of news organization that Fox News is. Keeping the logo consistent over the years, allowed for the viewers to grow with the brand.
Together, this shows us that it’s important to make your logo part of your greater brand strategy – from the early days of planning up through every logo redesign.
Check out these awesome Logo Contests run on Hatchwise:
