FOXBlocker: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Saw this article the other day and wanted to share with all the rest of you non-fans of Fox:

Hunting for Fox: Device blacks out network's news
By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff | April 14, 2005

It started when Joshua Montgomery and Sam Kimery went to a showing last summer of ''Outfoxed" in Tulsa, Okla. Liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald's unflattering portrait of the Fox News Channel as a conservative propaganda outlet stirred them to action.

''Josh and I decided in the first 15 minutes of the show that we kind of have to do something," says Kimery, a 44-year-old technical writer who runs a small electronics company. ''It was very obvious that there was something very wrong with calling [what Fox does] news."

Adds Montgomery, a 27-year-old aerospace engineer: ''The problem is they really misrepresent themselves as 'Fair and Balanced.' "

So the partners created a strategy and a company. And if their product with the catchy name -- the FOXBlocker -- hasn't exactly become a household word, it has inspired a small group of activists opposing Fox News Channel to launch a unique boycott that may end up causing headaches for some cable operators.

The operation began by selling the FOXBlocker -- a metal device about the size of a C battery that screws into the back of the TV set and that can filter out the Fox News Channel -- for $8.95. Montgomery says he and Kimery managed to move about 100 of the items by the end of last month. But selling the device for that sum was a flawed business model.

''When you factor in labor," he says, ''we're literally losing money hand over fist."

So the anti-Fox brigades are trying a different tactic. About a year ago, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association announced that a number of cable companies would offer channel-blocking equipment free of charge to any customer who does not possess that capability.

Now the FOXBlocker website exhorts supporters to ask their cable company to come to their home to install a device to keep out the Fox News Channel.

The campaign was unveiled this month, Montgomery says, and more than 700 people participated in the first week. He figures that each trip to install a filter costs the cable company about $50 in parts and labor.

Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the cable association, says the new FOXBlocker strategy adheres to the letter -- if not exactly the spirit -- of the cable industry offer. He says the decision to offer free blocking was ''launched over concerns about indecent content on television," not to respond to complaints about news programming.

Dietz says that many cable users have the technology to block channels through their cable box. But he acknowledges that operators are technically obligated to respond to those who are asking for the Fox filter.

''The purpose of the initiative is to help families control unwanted programming from entering the home," he says. ''And the cable industry is not making judgments about the channels."

Irena Briganti, a spokeswoman for the Fox News Channel, says the FOXBlockers are having no impact. ''Clearly it's not working out, given that our ratings are skyrocketing," she says. (Blah, blah, blah)

According to Nielsen Media Research viewing numbers for the first quarter of 2005, the Fox News Channel is dominating the cable news wars in both prime-time and total day ratings, almost doubling the average audience of second-place CNN.

At the same time, the outlet continues to generate journalistic criticism. A recent study by the nonpartisan Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that when it came to cable news, ''Fox was measurably more one-sided than the other networks and Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air."

The survey said that 68 percent of the Fox News Channel stories analyzed included ''personal opinions" from Fox reporters.

The Fox News Channel has also been a frequent target for liberal media critics. But one such organization, while expressing sympathy toward the FOXBlockers, has some qualms with the unorthodox strategy.

''It's the response of people who are righteously annoyed by Fox's false advertising and who are unable to see their views regularly presented on cable TV," says Steve Rendall, senior analyst for the liberal watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, based in New York. ''Do we endorse FOXBlocker? No, because we would like to see more diversity in cable broadcasting. We think viewers benefit from opinions they don't believe in."

HA Couldn't happen to a nicer network. (All emphases mine.)