Towards a 'Foxification' of 24-hour news channels in Britain?: An analysis of market-driven and publicly funded news coverage

Drawing on three media content analyses between 2004 and 2007, we examine the differences in news coverage between BBC News 24 (a public service broadcasting channel) and Sky News (a commercial provider). We explore this longitudinal data in the context of recent claims that 24-hour news channels in the UK are succumbing to the kind of decline in news standards exemplified by the Fox network in the USA. While there are some signs of `Foxifixation', the existing public service regulations in UK broadcasting and the presence of a full-blown public service broadcaster like the BBC act as a break on `Foxification' in commercial providers like Sky. Although Fox and Sky are both Murdoch channels, Sky conforms to some of the expectations of public service broadcasting in a way that Fox does not