Fox News Channel

The Kremlin wants an apology from Fox News. Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has demanded a formal apology from the cable news network after Bill O’Reilly called the Russian president “a killer” during an interview with U.S. President Donald Trump that aired before Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Several websites reported that the president told Fox News that he would ban “Empire” as part of a two-year effort “to remove all shows that have too much gay activity.” A spokesperson for Fox News confirms that Trump never made such remarks on their air.

When Donald Trump takes the oath of office Friday, becoming the 45th president, two factors will have helped in a big — no, huge — way. He had one dominant message and one dominant messenger. A new Pew Research study shows that Trump voters coalesced around a single primary news source: Fox News.

As other cable and broadcast networks falter, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC had big ratings gains in 2016.

Fox News Channel scored the best overall results for all networks — up 36% to an industry-leading Nielsen cable primetime average of 2.5 million viewers. Only six non-news networks among the top 30 cable TV channels showed total viewer primetime gains in 2016: HGTV, Hallmark Channel, Investigation Discovery, Bravo, TV Land and Nick Jr.

Comparing the five weeks after the election to the white-hot campaign days of October, Fox’s primetime audience is down 8%, according to Nielsen. That’s a much smaller drop than rivals CNN and MSNBC, and smaller than all of the networks historically following elections.

Roger Ailes might or might not be getting a position in the Trump administration, but the former Fox News chief’s time at the channel has found his old bosses back in court with another sexual harassment lawsuit — this time from a NYC Fox reporter.

Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures has scooped up a pitch from Charles Randolph about the former Fox News chairman.

John Stossel will step down from hosting his weekly Fox Business program, Stossel, this month. While Stossel will no longer host his weekly program, he will remain as a regular on-air presence for Fox, making frequent guest appearances on various shows for both Fox News and Fox Business.

She’s being heavily courted by CNN, which could use a signature primetime show, and others. But Fox News badly wants to keep her. Here’s what she’s likely to do.

Megyn Kelly has long delivered the news. Now, as her contract talks with Fox News continue, she will be forced to make a major decision about where she ought to be doing it. The popular anchor is entertaining offers from a handful of rival outlets, according to people familiar with the matter. Could one of those places be CNN?

This week the anchors and executives of the major networks walked into an ambush that affirmed the media as Trump’s whipping boy and left him victorious in his woodshed fury, Margaret Sullivan writes. But while the TV folks agreed to go off-the-record, the Times staffers “successfully called Trump’s bluff” and refused to. The lesson, she writes, is “journalists, and their corporate bosses, shouldn’t allow themselves to be used as props in Trump’s never-ending theater.”

There’s plenty of compelling evidence already as Dylan Byers tallies the offers (or considerations thereof). They include Laura Ingraham (press secretary), Richard Grenell (UN ambassador), Scott Brown (Veterans Affairs), Ret. Army Gen. Jack Keane (Defense secretary) and the list goes on and on….

President-elect Donald J. Trump, now the nation’s press critic in chief, inviting the leading anchors and executives of television news to join him on Monday for a private meeting of minds. On-air stars like Lester Holt, Charlie Rose, George Stephanopoulos and Wolf Blitzer headed to Trump Tower for the off-the-record gathering, typically the kind of event where journalists and politicians clear the air after a hard-fought campaign. Instead, the president-elect delivered a defiant message: You got it all wrong.

Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager of Donald Trump’s winning presidential run, says that the off-the-record meeting today between the president-elect and top brass from ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and Fox News was “excellent” as well as “very candid and honest.”

The off-the-record meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET today and will include top executives and anchors from the nation’s five biggest television networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox News. Kellyanne Conway, the president-elect’s campaign manager and senior adviser, set up the meeting, and there’s plenty to talk about.

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who filed that first sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, will be interviewed by ABC News’s 20/20 for a full hour on the subject of sexual harassment. It airs on Friday.

In her new biography, Settle For More,  Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly lays out the private stories behind what happened after her debate question on Trump’s treatment of women caused the Republican candidate to bitterly go after her on social media and in interviews.