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Fox refuses to air Obama's Wednesday-night speech
The Fox television network has refused to air President Barack Obama’s primetime press conference on Wednesday night, scheduled to mark the president’s 100th day in office.
“The address, scheduled for 8 p.m. (ET), could have possibly affected the ‘American Idol’ results show, which begins at 9 p.m., and the network did not want to risk that during the critical sweeps period for ratings, according to sources,” reported the Los Angeles Times. “Fox has historically not registered high ratings for presidential addresses and decided, given the nature of this particular press conference, not to show it, sources said. Fox aired Obama’s two previous primetime addresses.”
“It’s the first time a broadcast network has refused Obama’s request,” noted the Associated Press. “This will be the third prime-time news conference in Obama’s presidency. ABC, CBS and NBC are airing it.”
“Network execs got word yesterday morning that Obamavision was making another return visit, sending them scrambling to decide whether to air, how to reschedule planned programming, etc.,” opined the Washington Post’s television columnist. “Really, how hard would it have been to count 100 days out from Obama’s first day in office in anticipation that something like this would happen, and get out ahead of this headache? The guy’s nothing if not consistent when it comes to on-camera time.”
“Fox will be alerting viewers with an on-screen graphic at the top of the 8:00 PM (ET) hour that the press conference is available on Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network,” the network said in a prepared statement.
A recent Pew Research poll found news watchers rated Fox News, by a wide margin, as overly critical of the Obama administration.
President Obama is enjoying the best presidential job approval rating at this point in 20 years, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, with 69 percent of Americans approving of the job he is doing: the highest evaluation in about two decades.
