Fox News Channel announced today that it would shut down for what it called “routine maintenance” Monday morning at 11:30 E.T.

Fox News president Roger Ailes explained the timing of the shutdown, which will be the first in the history of the network: “We wanted to pick a time when we were positive nothing would be happening that our viewers would want to see.”


Mr. Ailes said that Fox had considered shutting down only once before, exactly four years earlier on January 20, 2009, and later regretted the decision to continue broadcasting that day: “It turned out that no Fox viewers wanted to watch TV that day. And I mean none.”

According to Mr. Ailes, for the twelve hours Fox News is off the air on Monday the network will broadcast a continuous photomontage of white people.

“Regular viewers of Fox probably won’t notice anything unusual,” he said.

After the routine maintenance is completed, Mr. Ailes said, Fox News will return to the air Tuesday morning with its regular broadcast schedule: “For Fox viewers, it will be like Monday never happened.”


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