“Fox News will be going through a dramatic transformation as it figures itself out without its creator,” said James Shepard, chair of the Communications Department at California State University, Fullerton.

“In the short term, I suspect we will see minimal turnover and experimentation,” he said. But in the long term, we may see softening of the most radical elements of programming and perhaps see more ‘fair and balanced’ news.”…

“At this point Fox News is such a fine-tuned and well-oiled machine, I think even Mickey Mouse could step in and keep it running, says Doug Spero, associate professor of communication at Meredith College and TV veteran who includes ABC, CBS and NBC on his resume.

“They attract the same demos year after year and they’ve dominated with their prime-time lineup. Bill O’Reilly has been number one for years,” he said.

“As the saying goes, ‘If it ain’t terribly broken, don’t terribly fix it.’ Would they change the ideology or content? I don’t think so,” says Spero. “They’ve carved out their audience and if you’ve got the market, why mess with it? If the cash register keeps ringing, I can’t imagine the Murdoch family will allow that to stop.”