Less than a year after being forced from one of the most powerful jobs in American media as head of the Fox News unit of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOX), Roger Ailes is dead.
Fox News confirmed Ailes died Thursday morning, three days after his 77th birthday. He battled health problems in recent years.
Regardless of his achievements — of which there were many — Ailes is destined to be remembered as the executive who was dismissed under a cloud of allegations that he sexually harassed employees including the former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who alleged in a lawsuit that Ailes fired her after she refused to have sex with him.
Here are five things to remember about Roger Ailes:
- He denied all allegations of sexual harassment
- Ailes reportedly received a $40 million payout for his departure and was to remain as a consultant to the network through 2018.
- Ailes was a successful local TV producer who emerged as a key adviser to Republican presidents.
- He was handpicked to lead Fox News when the media mogul Rupert Murdoch launched the service in 1996.
- Under Ailes leadership, Fox became a cable news ratings leader and the channel of choice for conservative and right-wing politics.
Fox’s “fair and balanced” motto challenged the so-called mainstream media. Even his fiercest critics acknowledged that he changed the very nature of cable news.
Fox News has been the scene of sexual harassment claims and lawsuits that have led to the departures of network co-president Bill Shine and star anchor Bill O’Reilly, in addition to Ailes. Settlements of lawsuits following Ailes’s ousting cost the company some $10 million in the recently reported March quarter, bringing such costs to a total of $45 million in the nine months to March 31, according to a regulatory filing by Fox.
FOX stock has declined 6.7% since Ailes was forced out of Fox News last July.
