The FOX Report with
Shepard Smith will vacate the 7 p.m. hour this fall and be incorporated
into a newly established breaking news division lead by Smith, Fox News Channel
announced on Thursday.
Smith will be
managing editor of the unit and continue as the network's chief news anchor as
part of a multi-year deal to remain with FNC he signed earlier this summer. Smith
will continue to anchor the 3 p.m. hour, where he has hosted Studio B, which will be replaced with Shephard Smith Reporting, a new one-hour
program that will rely on technology and social media to bring viewers the
news.
The show will broadcast from a new studio called "The Fox
News Deck," which will serve as a command center for breaking news throughout
the day.
"Shep is a premier journalist and one of the finest newsmen
of the modern era. He will exemplify the ethos that Fox News is when and where
the news is, as it happens, no longer bound by a traditional evening format
conceived in the 1960s," said Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.
The shift of Smith opens up the 7 p.m. hour as Fox News has
committed to moving anchor Megyn Kelly to primetime this fall when she returns
from maternity leave.
The network has already signed long-term deals with all of its current
primetime hosts -- Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren.
