Posted on December 06, 2018
How Fox and Friends became the number one cable morning news show
Top Cable News Morning Show:
Fox and Friends hosted by Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, Steve Doocycontinues to rank number one among the cable television morning shows. Its main competition is against MSNBC's Morning Joe, hosted by former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough and CNN's New Day, hosted by Kate Bolduan and Chris Cuomo. The show attributes its number one ranking to the 2013 addition of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and its staff.
All-American Concert Series:
In trying to compete with the Today Show and Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, sponsors the All American Concert Series, during the warm summer months. From 6am-9am, visitors can enjoy Dave's BBQ for free and enjoy and free music performances from acts from the Heartland. It is worth noting that the musical acts pale in comparison to the headliners secured by the Today Show or GMA. While the Today Show and GMA have A-list acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, Fox and Friends has performances by Scotty McCreery and The Gin Blossoms
News Reporting or Right Wing Political Platform:
While offering a valid and different viewpoint from many other liberal leaning news outfits, like CNBC, the reporting on Fox and Fox and Friends had been shown to be both biased and inaccurate. Study after study has shown that viewers of FOX and its news shows are less informed and more misinformed than viewers of other networks or those who do not watch the news at all. This ranges from the average fox viewer believing less in the scientifically proven phenomena of Global Warming to the belief that President Obama is a secret Muslim and was not really born in Hawaii. Writers from The New York Times and Time magazine have accused Fox and Friends for airing an inaccurate and inflammatory video clip about the Obama administration in May 2012. Although Fox executives backtracked and claimed the clip was not news but entertainment, it still garnered for Fox the highest rated cable show in its time slot.
Hosts are known for their inappropriate and sometimes Offensive Comments:
Hasselbeck has been outspoken in views against abortion (in even the case of rape or incest) and in response to The Ray Rice Controversy (where he is shown knocking his fiancée unconscious in an elevator) Hasselbeck (wife of a NFL quarterback) compared the handling of the incident to the handling of the Benghazi embassy attack, while her co- hosts joked that Rice's fiancée should have taken the stairs. Brian Kilmeade has also made some disparaging remarks about Muslims. He asked meteorologist, Maria Molina, of Nicaraguan descent if she was brought up eating tacos (a Mexican food) and he stated that "in contrast to pure Swedes, who marry other Swedes, Americans marry different species and different ethnics"
Fox & Friends Co-Host Hits Band Member with Axe:
Who will win the battle of the lumberjacks? Certainly not co-host, Pete Hegseth, on Fox and Friends that airs on the Fox News Channel. On June 22, 2015, the West Point marching band drummer Jeff Prosperie was hit directly in the right forearm with an axe, when Hegseth made a wild throw with a chromed-out felling axe that completely missed its intended target. Hegseth was reported as blaming show producers for encouraging him on to throw the axe harder than he did in the warm up. Amazingly the other band members kept drumming after Prosperie was hit (apparently they are trained to keep going whatever happens) and luckily Prosperie was not badly injured. No word yet from the Fox Corporation on the insurance claim, but as this is not the first physical mishap they have had on the show, producers may start to feel Fox executives wrath when it comes to wild and ill-advised stunts designed to generate ratings. Prosperie described the incident as "obvious negligence." He went on to say "I am thankful to God that the double-sided blade only hit broadside on the outer elbow with significant impact and a couple of cuts." This is another in the line of on-air physical gaffs that Fox and Friends had experienced recently, with other dangerous stunts that included changing a tire on a car that was still running in gear and tossing a basketball at a child's face. Fox and Friends producers cannot seem to get anything right. Just one block West from NBC's Today Show, Fox and Friends feels it is necessary to try to one-up The Today Show, even they do not even compete in the same bandwidth, with The Today Show being on Broadcast TV and Fox and Friends stuck on cable TV, with less than 5% of its NBC counterparts ratings. The upstart Fox and Friends shows some gumption, but with these kinds of incidents, someone is going to be maimed, or even killed, just to increase TV ratings.
