Fox News scores massive ratings, but the Fox name isn’t proving helpful for a local Fox affiliate in left-leaning Boston, which announced it is dropping the word “Fox” from its nightly news broadcast.
“The perception of what our TV news station does is not what we do. They perceive us to be part of the Fox News family,” WFXT general manager Tom Raponi told the Boston Globe, adding that the Fox 25 News brand “wasn’t built for this environment.”
The Globe notes that Massachusetts is one of only two states where every county voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
The station’s corporate affiliation with Fox will remain. The station will still refer to itself as “Fox 25,” but its nightly newscast, produced locally, will now be called “Boston 25 News,” beginning April 24.
The move came in response to a drop in ratings and research which showed 41 percent of Boston-area viewers thought the affiliate’s newscast leaned conservative.
WFXT was an owned and operated Fox station until it was acquired by Cox Media Group in 2014.
Neither Fox News nor WFXT responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.