Politics Key in Finding Fox News CEO, NYT's Stewart Tells CNBC

As Roger Ailes was a former GOP media consultant, NYT's Jim Stewart said on CNBC today he would not be surprised if the new station CEO has a political background.
By Lindsay Rittenhouse ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Fox News may bring in a political-type figure like "Newt Gingrich" to replace CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes who resigned last night amid sexual harassment allegations, New York Times columnist Jim Stewart said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Friday.

Ailes, who had served as a media consultant for GOP presidents such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, efficiently "fused" politics and media together at the network, Stewart explained.

Of course, Gingrich is "purely speculative. I'm not sure if he has the ambition or the management skills. But he has that ideological fervor and clear, strong point of view that would appeal to Fox." So, it would not "shock" Stewart if the CEO position was given to a person like Gingrich, who is a retired politician now acting as a Republican consultant.

"It's interesting that they clearly had no successor ready to step in," Stewart noted.

Fox News' parent company Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA) - Get Report founder and leader Rupert Murdoch is currently serving as the station's chairman and acting CEO.

There has been talk of Bill Shine, senior executive VP of programming at Fox Business, taking over Ailes' position as well, he commented.

"But if you look at the model of Roger Ailes himself...this network was his life. He had the fire burning in his belly everyday and that's not an easy quality to find and replace," Stewart stated.

Twenty-First Century Fox did handle the Ailes fiasco "quite well," he mentioned.

Shares of Fox are declining by 0.33% to $27.09 late this morning.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings rated Fox as a "hold" with a score of C+.

The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, expanding profit margins and good cash flow from operations. However, as a counter to these strengths, TheStreet Ratings also finds weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, deteriorating net income and generally higher debt management risk.

You can view the full analysis from the report here: FOXA

TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.

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