It begins at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time Zone with the latest Fox News Live headlines and news of the morning and continues with a variety of segments including current events, interviews, updates of news stories with correspondents, political analysis from the hosts, and entertainment segments.[6][7]
History
Fox & Friends evolved from Fox X-press, Fox News Channel's original morning news program.
After the September 11 attacks, an additional hour was added to the beginning of the weekday show, but branded as a separate show called Fox & Friends First. It was the first Fox News show to air live for the day, starting at 6:00 a.m. It was discontinued on July 13, 2008, and replaced with an additional hour of Fox & Friends.[8] The Fox & Friends First title was reintroduced on March 5, 2012, also as a separate show airing one hour before the main three-hour program, but using a separate slate of rotating anchors.[9]
The "Summer Concert Series" features a live music concert in the Fox News Plaza each Friday from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.[12][13]
"So Sue Me" is a segment in which Peter Johnson Jr. (an appellate and trial lawyer) offers his perspective on current events with legal implications.[14]
Ratings
The New York Times has reported the show is one of the most successful on the network.[15] After the arrival of Elisabeth Hasselbeck in September 2013, the show climbed 23 percent in total viewers compared to its average for the third quarter of 2013, and 22 percent in the key 25–54 news demo. For Hasselbeck's first four weeks on the show, Fox & Friends averaged 1.226 million total viewers, up from the 1.058 that the show averaged for the third quarter of the year.[16][17]
In February 2017, the program's average ratings increased to around 1.7 million viewers, fueled by the recent inauguration of Republican candidate Donald Trump as president.[18]
In 2012, The New York Times wrote that Fox & Friends "has become a powerful platform for some of the most strident attacks on President Obama."[15] The program has provided a platform for Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories and, in May 2012, aired a 4-minute video attacking Obama's record as president.[15] The video was widely criticized as a political attack ad masquerading as journalism;[19][20]Time magazine television critic James Poniewozik wrote: "It's hard to imagine a more over-the-top parody of Fox News raw-meat-hurling, fear-stoking, base-pleasing agitprop."[21] In response, a Fox News executive vice-president 'disavowed' the video, blaming an associate producer and that the video 'slipped by' senior managers at the network.[22] Fox News stated that the show was entertainment and "does not pretend to be straight news."[15]
U.S. president Donald Trump is a regular viewer of Fox & Friends, and praised the program for its favorable coverage of his presidency during his first term. Critics noted that Trump often tweeted about stories on Fox & Friends as they aired, creating a "feedback loop" when the stories were subsequently discussed as national issues because they were mentioned by Trump on social media.[23][24][25][26][27][28]
Trump was a frequent guest on Fox & Friends before his presidency. In 2018, Fox News announced that he would appear on the show to offer commentary every Monday.[29]
On April 26, 2018, Trump was interviewed by phone on Fox & Friends in a segment that stretched to nearly half an hour, and discussed several recent topics and controversies surrounding himself and his government.[30][31] Trump said that he might interfere with the Special Counsel investigation,[32] acknowledged that lawyer Michael Cohen had represented Trump in the Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal,[33] and said that he had gotten a card and flowers for Melania Trump, his wife, whose birthday was the same day.[34]
^Meagher, Richard (2012). "The "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy": Media and Conservative Networks". New Political Science. 34 (4): 469–484. doi:10.1080/07393148.2012.729738. S2CID144393059.
