“Regulators invited public comment on whether the US broadcast license for Fox Corp.’s TV station in Philadelphia should be renewed after a grassroots organization asked that it be denied, saying Fox knowingly broadcast false news about the 2020 election.”
Seemingly only affects a single local station in Philadelphia. While it should be denied and hopefully that will push for more denials to follow, this isn’t going to shut down FOX News the cable channel. It is at least a decently sized market, but still just one stations local news.
Even if it shuts down the cable channel they’ll just switch to a streaming-first model. It’s not going to be this easy to make Fox News go away.
A streaming-first approach might significantly shrink their audience at least. I don’t think most people watching FOX will go sign up for a separate streaming service and throw that on their TVs. I know at least when I was living in the midwest, a lot of restaurants would play it on their TVs inside. I’d be surprised if that didn’t push them to playing some other channel instead.
I live in the Midwest and I’m honestly not sure. On the one hand you’re right, but on the other I’ve seen restaurants willing to hook up a couple Roku’s to stream whatever customers want. Remains to be seen if they’re willing to go so far out of their way just for Fox News, but I’m sure some bars out in the rural areas 100% would.
The article says the next Fox station to seek license renewal won’t do so until 2028, so that’s a bummer.