Bill Shine, co-president of Fox News, will part ways with the cable news network, according to Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine.
A Fox News source told Breitbart News that Shine resigned.
UPDATE: Fox News has confirmed Shine’s resignation, with a press release reading in part:
Bill Shine, Co-President of FOX News Channel (FNC) since August 2016, has resigned and will leave the company after helping the transition over the next few weeks, announced Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox. Shine has been with FOX News since its inception over 20 years ago.
In making the announcement, Mr. Murdoch said, “This is a significant day for all at FOX News. Bill has played a huge role in building FOX News to its present position as the nation’s biggest and most important cable channel in the history of the industry. His contribution to our channel and our country will resonate for many years.”
Jack Abernethy remains Co-President of FOX News and CEO of Fox Television Stations.
Shine, 53, has worked at the cable news network since its inception in 1996. He was a producer on Hannity and Colmes and rose through the company, serving as a deputy to former CEO Roger Ailes.
Shine’s departure comes the week after Bill O’Reilly, long the king of primetime cable news ratings, left the network as a flurry of reports accused him of sexual harassment. O’Reilly has personally denied those allegations.
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch appointed Shine and Jack Abernethy as co-presidents after Ailes left the company in July 2016. Ailes stepped down amid sexual harassment allegations from former anchors such as Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Shine denied knowledge of any wrongdoing in those cases, and Ailes has similarly denied all the allegations against him.
Last week, primetime host Sean Hannity tweeted that if Shine were to leave the network, “that’s the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done.”
Several inside accounts have framed Fox News’s current woes as an identity crisis; Murdoch’s sons James and Lachlan are reportedly hoping to shake up their aging father’s creation into something more palatable to their worldview and less friendly to American conservatives.
Michael Wolff, a media reporter and biographer to Rupert Murdoch, reported in October of last year that the younger Murdochs want Jeff Zucker, currently President of CNN, to take over Fox News.
A report in Vanity Fair said that James and Lachlan saw Megyn Kelly as the network’s “brightest star” and a “big part” of its future. Kelly turned down their offers to renew her contract — with reported figures as high as $100 million — and jumped ship to NBC News.