Tony Snow Heads to Fox Radio
After seven years as host of "Fox News Sunday," Tony Snow is
leaving Fox TV for Fox radio, where he can free his conservative voice.
"I've been wanting to do radio for a long time, and you've got to make some
choices," the popular conservative host told the Washington Post. Radio, he
said, "has a sense of immediacy," and "you end up talking about your personal
life and all sorts of things that connect with people."
He will continue as a commentator for Fox News Channel.
Although Fox News executives say Snow did a solid job in his seven years as a
Sunday morning host, moving him to the radio was Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes'
way of "easing Snow out at a time when he believes that the program needs a
jump-start," the Post quoted sources at the network as saying.
That came as a surprise to Snow. "I never heard anybody saying to me, 'We
don't think you're doing the job.'" He called the development "a convergence of
interests."
Chris Wallace?!
The Post speculated that Snow's replacement could be ABC correspondent Chris
Wallace, son of CBS' geriatric fixture Mike Wallace.
"Fox News Sunday," with an average of 1.6 million viewers, is the only Sunday
broadcast news show whose viewership is up this year, from 1.3 million in the
same period last year.
It trails "Meet the Press" (4.2 million), CBS's "Face the Nation" (2.7
million) and ABC's "This Week" (2.5 million). Fox executives hope a new
anchorman will generate greater support from affiliate stations that do little
or no news and offer church programming as a Sunday lead-in.
Snow says he's happy to be free of the restraints on expressing his opinions
imposed on him at the Sunday show. "I'm going to be committing opinions on
radio," he said. That was hard to do as a Sunday host because "you don't want a
bunch of ticked-off guests."
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