Boston Fox Network Affiliate to Drop ‘Fox’ From Its Newscast Branding

In a strange way, this story is arguably a long time coming: WFXT-TV, Boston’s Fox network affiliate, is dumping the “Fox” branding from his newscasts. The Boston Globe reports that the reasoning for the change is pretty simple: They want to avoid confusion with the Fox News cable television branding. WFXT is still a Fox affiliate and will even still be branded as “Fox 25”; the change applies only to the newscast.

If you’re a long-time consumer of news online, you have likely noticed a pattern in discussions: if someone mentions their local Fox affiliate’s news operation, or reacting to a link to a story from a station with Fox branding, other people sometimes conflate it with the Fox News cable network. To wit, WFXT research shows that 41% of Bostonites believe the station leans conservative almost entirely because of the “Fox” branding.

“The perception of what our TV news station does is not what we do. They perceive us to be part of the Fox News family,” said general manager Tom Raponi. He feels that the “Fox 25 News” branding “wasn’t built for this environment” of hyper-partisan coverage and increasingly polarized voters/viewers. That’s especially important in Massachusetts, where more than half of voters are registered independents.

To complicate matters further, WFXT was owned and operated by Fox itself until 2014, when it was acquired by Cox Media Group in a station trade deal. There may have been Fox DNA before, but not anymore.

“It’s not that it’s a bad brand,” Raponi added. “It’s just that it’s not ours.”