THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW: DENNIS SWANSON, PRESIDENT, FOX TELEVISION STATIONS:HOW DOES a former marine whose great grandfather emigrated from Mayo during the Famine end up discovering Oprah Winfrey and working for Rupert Murdoch as president of Fox Television Stations in the US?
As he reclines in his chair in the salubrious surroundings of the Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dennis Swanson laughs a bit and says: “It was a long journey.”
A fit 71-year-old who works out every morning in the gym on the third floor of the News Corporation building in New York, Swanson’s family heritage is a mix of military Prussian Germans on his mother’s side and Swedish and Irish farmers on his father’s side. Swanson was the first in his family to go to college and earned the nickname “Doc” as a child on account of his good grades.
“Why I love America is that you’re not typecast,” he declares. “You can rise on your ability and your drive to better yourself. My wife Katharine and I married young and we had our children young, and what has always driven me is that I wanted my kids to have a better and easier life than I did.”
Swanson went to college because he won an engineering scholarship. He didn’t want to be an engineer but it was the only available scholarship. After two years, he switched to a degree in journalism.
After graduation, he joined the marines because he wanted to serve his country and his baseball hero, Ted Williams, had been a marine. “I credit much of my business success to the leadership training I received as a marine, and the lessons I learned from being in the Marine Corps.”
Those lessons have served Swanson well in his tour of duty of the US television industry.
After getting his start in television news in Iowa, Swanson moved to Chicago to be a producer for the city's NBC affiliate. Then it was off to Los Angeles for a couple of years before returning to the Windy City in 1976. After that, Swanson headed to ABC Sports for 10 years, during which time he revamped Monday Night Football. In 1996 he took over NBC's flagship New York affiliate, before becoming executive vice-president of Viacoms station group.
In 2005, Roger Ailes brought Swanson to Fox, where he was tasked with overhauling the network’s broadcast stations.
Swanson’s main claim to TV fame is discovering Oprah Winfrey. When he was running a station in Chicago, Phil Donahoe’s morning show on the rival network was, says Swanson, “beating us like a drum every morning”.
He recalls: “I said to the programme department, ‘it appears to me that you folks are always focused on trying to find the right male to go up against Donahoe. Maybe we should be trying to find the right female and give the viewers an alternative’.”
Luckily for Swanson, a young programme presenter who worked with Oprah had a tape of a show she was working on and showed it to Swanson. “We brought Oprah to Chicago for a full audition on Labor Day weekend in 1983. Once we saw that audition, we knew she was the one. She was awesome.
“At the time though, Chicago had just elected an African-American as city mayor and there was a lot of polarisation. Oprah was an African-American female and a little overweight, but she was so talented and that was what mattered.”
Winfrey has publicly thanked Swanson many times for giving her the big break. “She always called me ‘Dennarue’ and, when she interviewed me on her show, she asked me, ‘Dennarue, how are you doing?’, and I said, ‘good, but not as good as you’.”
For Swanson, the voice is the most important attribute of any TV presenter. “People send me DVDs all the time. Some I listen to for three or five seconds. If the voice isn’t right, forget it. It doesn’t matter what the look is, if the voice is irritating, it will never work.”
In his current role as president of Fox Television Stations, Swanson is responsible for 35 television stations across the US. Over the four decades of his career, Swanson has developed a blueprint for turning around ailing stations, a strategy that includes poaching well-known talent from rival broadcasters and sponsoring major community events to build loyalty.
However his tenure at Fox could be Swanson’s biggest challenge yet. He describes the current downturn as the worst he has experienced in 40 years. “The bottom fell out of the ad market in March 2008. Our stations have just one revenue stream – advertising. Our three biggest ad categories are cars, retail and financial, and they are not spending any money on ads.”
In Swanson’s view, while media owners can’t control the economy, they can control their market share. “We have to secure better ratings with better programming to arm our sales people with the best numbers to help them compete for the available ad dollars.”
To that end, Swanson has expanded news coverage on Fox stations, an investment which he says is delivering bigger audiences.
"People will tune into watch news, reality shows like American Idoland sports coverage. You have to own breaking news and be the most aggressive in that regard. Coupled with community engagement, that is the formula for a successful TV station."
Last month, all US television stations switched from analogue to digital broadcasts. “Our business is changing rapidly and the economic circumstances just pile it on,” says Swanson. “Local television is still the number one source of information for Americans, but it no longer holds the dominant position it once did. It’s the same for newspapers. Young people under 30 in our country don’t gravitate to newspapers any longer. Even my five-year- old grandson is computer literate, but we are investing heavily in new technologies too.”
Fox News has a reputation in the US for being partisan, reflecting the right-wing Republican views of its owner. Swanson is effusive about his ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch. “He’s a gentleman and he doesn’t panic. He’s like the Rock of Gibraltar, a fascinating man to interact with, and he listens.”
In recent months, President Obama has complained about the adverse commentary he and his administration receive from Fox, but Swanson isn’t bothered. “President Obama has been great for Fox News – the ratings couldn’t be higher. The more Obama takes digs at Fox News, the better it is for the channel. Bring it on.”
Swanson insists that he judges US presidents on their policies, not their party affiliation. He speaks with admiration about how Clinton worked with Republicans to bring down the government deficit and balance the books. He has concerns though about the economic policies being pursued by Obama.
“Clinton realised that our country is a middle-of-the road conservative country and he took us in that direction, but we are now headed towards an ultra-liberal tax-and-spend policy which concerns me greatly. We should not be incurring the amount of debt that President Obama is taking on. Generations of future Americans will be lumbered with paying back this debt.”
Swanson took over the presidency of the Ireland-US Council in May 2008. Founded in 1963, its main aim is to encourage business links between the two countries. One of its programmes is an annual student work experience scholarship scheme through which undergraduates from Irish universities gain work experience in US companies.
Swanson believes US firms still consider Ireland an attractive place to do business in, but cautions about the importance of Ireland’s taxation policy in attracting those companies.
He is also involved with the Emma Bowen Foundation, which fosters the involvement of underprivileged young people in US media.
He likes to spend time with his grandchildren and this summer he and his wife are taking their five granddaughters to Costa Rica.
Swanson says he has no plans to retire soon. “My goal was to retire when I reached 55. So long as my health holds and my interest holds and as long as the people I work for think I’m doing okay, I’ll continue to work. But I hope I’m smart enough to know when to leave.”
On the Record
Name:Dennis Swanson.
Age:71.
Position:President stations operations for Fox Television Stations and president of the Ireland-US Council.
Family:Married to Katharine for 48 years, he lives in Connecticut. They have three children and nine grandchildren.
Education:Born in California, he was raised in Springfield, Illinois. He earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Illinois. In between, he served in the Marine Corps.
Hobbies:Reading.
Something you might expect:He likes Rupert Murdoch's sense of humour.
Something you might least expect:He collects stamps and antique French plates.
