Guessing what President Trump might do once he’s out of office is kind of a pointless exercise because nobody knows, probably not even him — but we’ve got some time to kill before Jan. 20, so why not?
There’s some murmuring that Trump might exit the White House and start up “Trump TV,” a news network that would compete with Fox News. ABC’s John Santucci reported last week that “should he lose, Trump wants to destroy Fox” and that he would do that in part by poaching Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson for his own TV channel.
It’s all fine and good if the president wants to “destroy” Fox News, but that’s easier said than done. Competing with Fox is a herculean task, let alone destroying it. Ask the producers at One America News or Newsmax. They’ve tried to out-Fox Fox for years, and they’ve failed.
And it’s not like anyone can just start up a cable news channel. It takes money — a lot of it. To get Fox News off the ground, Rupert Murdoch actually had to pay cable providers to carry it. According to Rolling Stone, “To get Fox News into 25 million homes, Murdoch paid cable companies as much as $20 a subscriber.”
That’s already $500 million before accounting for production crews, on-air talent, studio space, lights, cameras, and on and on. That’s hundreds of millions of more dollars.
Tucker Carlson, the highest-rated host at Fox, reportedly makes $10 million per year. Sean Hannity is also paid in the eight-figure range, according to Forbes. OK, so that’s at least two hours’ worth of programming. Only 22 hours left to fill!
Trump, a notorious penny pincher, is probably not willing to put much, if any, of his own money into that. He would need to find investors who actually believe another profitable cable news channel is feasible. Again, there isn’t much evidence that there is, though Fox Business has become a major competitor against CNBC since its launch in 2007.
If there were a model for Trump to replicate with the potential for success in TV, it would probably be OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. Winfrey has turned that into a viable channel, though it’s not a news network and it took a very long time to find its footing. Even Winfrey back in 2012 said, “Had I known that it was this difficult, I might have done something else.”
There’s plenty of stuff for Trump to do after he leaves office. Destroying Fox News probably isn’t one of them.
