Before this year it would been absurd to even ask whether one of America's largest TV networks was going to set aside an hour of primetime to broadcast the President of the United States' State of the Union Address. It would be absurd because I don't think a U.S. TV network has ever not covered the POTUS' SOTU. The address is considered to be sort of the bare minimum that broadcasters do in terms of providing some sort of public interesting programming during the calender year, aside from regularly scheduled newscasts.

So naturally Murdoch's Fox TV will cover the SOTU, right? I haven't seen anything definitive since the SOTU date of Jan. 27 was recently announced, but I honestly have my doubts because Murdoch has made it quite clear that Fox TV has decided to virtually ban Obama from its primetime. Fox TV started doing it with Obama's WH press conferences, and then Fox TV took the extraordinary step of denying the president airtime when he addressed a joint session of Congress to discuss historic health care reform. (Obama-less Fox TV got trounced in the ratings that night, BTW.)

So, given that precedent why would Fox TV broadcast the State of the Union? Execs there clearly don't believe they have any public interest obligation, despite the fact that Fox uses the public airwaves for free and banks tens of millions of dollars in ad revenues each year off those public airwaves.

Being realistic, I agree there's a chance that Fox TV will relent and make room for Obama next week. But if Murdoch does make room, all the move will do is confirm the obvious partisan motivation for snubbing Obama's health care address last summer. Because if the SOTU is good enough for Fox TV to telecast (i.e. an Obama address to a joint session of Congress), than why wasn't last summer's health care speech? (i.e. Also an Obama address to a joint session of Congress.)

Doesn't it become glaringly obvious that Fox TV refused to air the president last summer because Fox TV didn't like the topic on the table? Doesn't it become clear that Fox TV is picking and choosing when it will air Obama based on the politics in play?