Contents
In the sixth chapter of “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu describes how water runs away from high places and flows downward. In the same way, an army should avoid the opponent’s fullness and strike its emptiness. The launch of Fox News shows what this looks like in a media market – an example of the Principle of Emptiness and Fullness. It also shows that finding a gap says nothing yet about whether what you fill it with is good.
A market with a giant
Situation
Ted Turner founds CNN in 1980 as the first news channel broadcasting around the clock. By the mid-1990s, CNN is the brand for television news in the United States. In July 1996, MSNBC launches as well, a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. Rupert Murdoch, whose company News Corporation owns the Fox television network, announces a news channel of his own on January 30, 1996. In February he brings in Roger Ailes. Ailes had been a media adviser to Republican presidential candidates and had run the business channel CNBC.
Link to the principle
If you take on CNN head-on, you are fighting its fullness: a network of correspondents, experience, reputation, fixed slots on the cable systems. A second CNN would have given viewers hardly any reason to switch. So the question is not how to beat CNN but where CNN is not.
The emptiness: an audience without a channel
Situation
According to a widespread interpretation, Murdoch and Ailes target viewers who do not see themselves reflected in the established news: conservatives who accuse CNN and the major networks of a liberal bias. Ailes coins the slogan “Fair and Balanced.” The New York Times reads it as a clear signal that Fox intends to counter this perceived bias. Murdoch later explains the slogan by saying that Fox gives both sides room where previously only one had been heard.
Link to the principle
Here the emptiness is not open ground but a need nobody is serving. Fox does not have to lure loyal viewers away from CNN. It speaks to people who feel that no channel is talking to them. At this point the market leader has no defense, because it does not see this point as a front.
A weak start, targeted growth
Situation
Fox News goes on the air on October 7, 1996. At launch it reaches around 17 million cable subscribers, but neither New York nor Los Angeles. Time Warner, which after buying Turner Broadcasting also owns CNN, has to add a second news channel to its cable system under an antitrust requirement and chooses MSNBC. Fox pays cable operators up to $11 per subscriber to carry the channel. Normally it works the other way around. In New York, News Corporation seeks support from the city administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Link to the principle
Even on a small scale, Fox looks for the points where it can get through. Where one door is closed, it looks for another way in: money for the smaller cable systems, politics in New York. Strength goes where resistance gives way.
Overtaking the leader
Situation
In January 2002, Fox News overtakes CNN in the ratings for the first time. Since then it has been one of the most-watched cable news channels in the United States. In July 2016, Roger Ailes resigns after allegations of sexual harassment. In August, Fox begins replacing “Fair and Balanced” with a new slogan. Ailes dies in May 2017.
Link to the principle
Fox does not beat CNN with better foreign reporting or greater experience. It wins because it occupies a place the market leader had left empty. By the time the competition takes the gap seriously, it has already been filled. Whoever moves into the emptiness first decides what it looks like.
What the example does not show
Situation
The audience’s clear political orientation did not emerge overnight. According to several accounts, before 2000 more Democrats than Republicans watched Fox News. Critics accuse the channel of having deepened political polarization in the United States. Supporters see it as a necessary counterweight.
Link to the principle
Emptiness and Fullness tells you where you can make your move. It says nothing about whether what you do there is good. Finding a gap is a strategic achievement. What you fill it with is a question of responsibility.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- Don’t ask first how to beat the strongest player; ask where that player is absent.
- An emptiness can be an audience that feels nobody is talking to it.
- If a door stays closed, look for the next one instead of pushing against the first.
- Market leaders overlook gaps they do not see as a front.
- Check what you are filling the gap with. Success alone is no yardstick.
Summary
Fox News took on an overwhelming market leader in 1996 and avoided its strengths. Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch targeted viewers who did not feel represented by CNN and the major networks, and they fought their way onto the cable systems with money and politics. In 2002, Fox was ahead of CNN for the first time. The example shows the power of the Principle of Emptiness and Fullness and, at the same time, its limit: it answers the question of where, not to what end.
Sources
- Gabriel Sherman: The Loudest Voice in the Room. New York: Random House 2014.
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War. Translated by Lionel Giles. London: Luzac & Co. 1910, Chapter 6.
