Murdoch Abandons Plan to Launch Fox News-Style Network in UK, Leaving Piers Morgan … Somewhere
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Where will Piers Morgan go now?
Media titan Rupert Murdoch has abandoned plans to launch a Fox News-style news channel in the UK, according to a report Tuesday in the Hollywood Reporter, following weeks of speculation — from industry insiders and The View‘s Meghan McCain — that Morgan would join the would-be right-wing network.
Murdoch’s News Corp. “will not launch a fully fledged Fox News-style news channel in the U.S., finding that such a move would not be financially viable,” the Hollywood Reporter said.
The report attributed the news to an email from Rebekah Brooks, CEO of the company’s News UK unit, to staff.
Instead, the company will reportedly focus on streaming video content, in which Brooks reportedly vowed to invest.
David Rhodes, the former CBS News president and a former Fox News executive, was set to run the channel and moved from the US to London last summer. He will reportedly leave the company in June, but will “remain involved with News Corp. on its investments in streaming news media,” according to the email from Brooks.
The New York Times reported in February on the planned launch of two conservative, right wing news channels in the UK, where television news is regulated to avoid political bias. Murdoch’s channel, as well as a rival venture, GB News would “challenge the BBC and other broadcasters by borrowing heavily from Mr. Murdoch’s Fox playbook,” the Times report said.
Murdoch’s plan was seen as “the less ambitious” of the two, but both networks were reportedly banking on an “audience for a challenge that rejects what it views as the left-leaning political correctness of the BBC,” the Times report said.
That means that Morgan, who currently writes a column for The Daily Mail, could still join GB News. He addressed speculation he would join that network in a recent tweet.
Morgan quit his job as a TV presenter on Good Morning Britain just hours after storming off the set when his colleagues called him out for his ongoing offensive against Meghan Markle, who is married to Prince Harry, after the couple raised allegations of racism within the British royal family during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
McCain’s suggestion linking Morgan to Murdoch’s UK channel wasn’t particularly far-fetched, considering Murdoch’s recent comments about an alleged “woke orthodoxy” in media and statements indicating his support for the unsupported theory that conservatives voices are being “targeted,” as Morgan has similarly railed against what he called the “woke crowd” and “woke mob.”
