Roger Eugene Ailes is one of television’s most versatile, outspoken, and successful producers and consultants. He has been described as “the amusingly ferocious Republican media genius” and a “pit-bull Republican media strategist turned television tycoon.” He has had a variety of careers, including producer of television shows, Shakespeare, and off-Broadway plays; and president of the cable television channels CNBC, America’s Talking, and FOX News.

Ailes’s career in television began in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a producer and director at KYW- TV, for what was then a locally produced talk-variety show, The Mike Douglas Show. He later became exec- utive producer for that program, which syndicated na- tionally, and won two Emmy Awards for his work, in 1967 and 1968. It was in this position, in 1967, that Ailes had a spirited discussion about television in poli- tics with one of the show’s guests, Richard Nixon, who took the view that television was a gimmick. Later, while campaigning for the U.S. presidency, Nixon called on Ailes to serve as his executive producer of TV. Nixon’s election victory in 1968 was only Ailes’s first venture into presidential television.

After founding Ailes Communications, Inc., in 1969, Ailes worked as consultant for various businesses and politicians, including WCBS-TV in New York. In the 1970s he tried his hand at theater production with the Broadway musical Mother Earth (1972) and the off- Broadway hit play Hot-l Baltimore (1973–76), for which Ailes received four Obie Awards. He was executive producer for a television special, The Last Frontier, in 1974, and he produced and directed a television special, Fellini: Wizards, Clowns, and Honest Liars, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination in 1977.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Ailes carried out polit- ical consulting for many candidates, and he returned to presidential campaigning as a consultant to President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Ailes is widely credited with having coached Reagan to victory in the second presidential debate with Walter Mondale, after Reagan had disappointed his partisans with a lackluster effort in he first debate. In 1984 Ailes won an Emmy Award as executive producer and director of a television special, Television and the Presidency. In 1987 he wrote a book with Jon Kraushar, You Are the Message: Secrets of the Master Communicators, in which Ailes discusses some of his philosophies and strategies for successful performance in the eye of the public media.

Ailes also won acclaim for his work in the 1988 presidential election, in which he helped guide Repub- lican George Bush to a come-from-behind victory over Democrat Michael Dukakis. (Ailes did not work on the losing 1992 Bush campaign against Bill Clinton.)

In 1991 Ailes convinced a syndicator to bring Rush Limbaugh from radio to television and became executive producer of Limbaugh’s late-night show. Ailes announced his withdrawal from political consulting in 1992.

In 1993 Ailes became president of NBC’s cable channel CNBC and began planning another NBC cable channel, America’s Talking (now called MSNBC), which debuted on July 4, 1994. After Ailes took over at CNBC, ratings increased 50 percent and profits tripled. He has had impressive success in his latest position as chairman and chief executive officer of FOX News. Since assuming this position in 1996, Ailes has over- seen the launch of the FOX News Channel on cable, boosting FOX programming to a leadership position in the cable news industry. In 2000 Ailes signed a contract to continue to serve as chairman and chief executive officer of FOX News through January 2004.