Pressure of Truth
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Outlet profile

Fox Carolina / Fox affiliates

U.S. center-right (local affiliates); Gray Media parent leadership is openly Republican-aligned

Owned byFox Carolina (WHNS, Greenville, SC) is owned by Gray Media (formerly Gray Television). Fox's 28 owned-and-operated stations are held by Fox Television Stations LLC, a subsidiary of Fox Corporation, controlled by Lachlan Murdoch. Hundreds of additional Fox affiliates are independently owned by station groups such as Nexstar Media Group.
FundingPrimarily local broadcast advertising and retransmission consent fees paid by cable and satellite providers; political advertising provides additional revenue in election years. Gray Media, which owns Fox Carolina, reported approximately $3.1 billion in total revenue for 2025.
On the administrationmixed

Background

Fox Carolina traces its broadcast license to 1953 in Asheville, North Carolina, but its modern programming era began on April 1, 1984, when Pappas Telecasting purchased the struggling station and relaunched it as the region's first full-market independent. It became a Fox affiliate in 1988, shortly after the Fox Broadcasting Company began building its affiliate network. Ownership changed multiple times over the following decade: Cannell Communications acquired it in 1990, First Media Television in 1994, and Meredith Corporation in 1997 for $435 million. The station rebranded from 'Fox 21' to 'Fox Carolina' in 2002 as cable and satellite systems scattered its placement across many channel numbers. In 2021, Gray Television (now Gray Media) acquired Fox Carolina as part of a sweeping purchase of Meredith's entire broadcast portfolio. Gray Media's CEO Hilton Howell Jr. has publicly praised Trump and Elon Musk, and company executives have expressed enthusiasm for broadcast deregulation under the Trump administration. Despite these corporate-level leanings, local Fox affiliates have long distinguished their local newscasts from Fox News Channel's national conservative commentary, and third-party media monitors have rated Gray's Washington DC news bureau as largely centrist in tone.

Sources

  1. WHNS – Wikipedia
  2. List of Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates – Wikipedia
  3. Gray DC Bureau – Media Bias/Fact Check
  4. Is Gray Television Liberal or Conservative? – Television USA
  5. Gray executives see deregulation coming under Trump – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  6. Fox Affiliates: We Are Not Fox News Channel – Media Matters
  7. Gray Media posts $3.1B 2025 revenue – StockTitan (10-K filing)
  8. Nexstar and Fox Renew Multi-Year Affiliation Agreement – Fox Corp Investor Relations

Profile compiled 2026-07-10; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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