Roger Ailes

Roger Ailes, the savvy and hard-charging television executive who transformed the Fox News Channel from an upstart enterprise to the top-rated cable news network, sealed a deal Wednesday to remain in his post for another five years. Ailes' new contract extends the key role he plays in News Corp. as chief executive of Fox News and chairman of the Fox Television Stations. "Roger has done a remarkable job building Fox News into a force in journalism," News Corp.

It was Roger Ailes who came up with the slogan "First in Business News" for CNBC when he was running the channel. Now, he's determined to knock it into second place. Ailes is a key architect of News Corp.'s new Fox Business Network. The channel, which is scheduled to launch Oct. 15, helped drive media mogul Rupert Murdoch's pursuit of Dow Jones & Co. News Corp. won its $5-billion bid for the company, which owns the Wall Street Journal, this week.

RUPERT MURDOCH and Roger Ailes had just announced their intention to create a 24-hour cable news channel from scratch, vowing to launch within a year and take on industry leader CNN. As they walked out of the news conference in the fledging network's Sixth Avenue headquarters in January 1996, Ailes turned to the News Corp. chairman. "I said, 'Rupert, they're laughing at us,' " the Fox News chairman and chief executive recalled in a recent interview.

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch on Monday handed control of the company's 35 television stations to Roger Ailes, the executive who in nine years built the Fox News Channel into a politically influential ratings juggernaut. Ailes, 65, replaces the media baron's 33-year-old son, Lachlan Murdoch, who abruptly resigned his management positions within the company last month amid reported tensions with his father.

Sure, Fox News is going to cop an attitude. Could it be Fox without one? From its outspoken chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, and so-called citizen reporter Matt Drudge, to news veterans Brit Hume and Catherine Crier, Fox News is raising its profile. And it's doing it with a mix of moxie, talent and challenges to conventional wisdom. "I think we're doing well," says Ailes, political consultant, Emmy-winning producer and president of CNBC before joining Fox two years ago.

Roger Ailes resigned Thursday as president and chief executive of CNBC and America's Talking, the NBC-owned cable channels. The 55-year-old executive who spanned the worlds of television and politics--first as Richard Nixon's television producer in 1968 and later as a top media strategist for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George Bush in 1988--said simply that it's "time to move on."

In the latest challenge to CNN, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch outlined plans for a new 24-hour news channel he said will be launched by the end of the year. Murdoch said Roger Ailes, the former president of NBC's CNBC cable network, will be chief executive for the channel and will also oversee Fox News, the news division of News Corp.'s Fox TV network.

It figures that Roger Ailes would create and run a talk-TV network. Ailes is quite the talker. Tough talk, persuasive talk, even sweet talk--it all comes naturally for this former TV producer, media consultant and political strategist for such candidates as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In August, 1993, Ailes was named president of CNBC, the NBC-owned business news and talk-show cable hybrid. Then he set about to start a sister channel, this one from scratch.