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Executive producer keeps FNC's prime time lineup hot
Bill Shine's first job at Fox News was to break Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes of their bad habits. The two may be top cable news attractions today, but in 1996, Hannity and Colmes came to Fox News as accomplished veterans of talk radio. Unfortunately, good radio often makes bad television.
Shine's initial task as the producer of Hannity & Colmes was simple: Put the two hosts in suits and makeup. But getting them camera-ready was another matter. They kept tapping pens on the desk and looking at the wrong camera; they were also unable to read a teleprompter. And forget about time cues.
"I was awful," Hannity says, admitting he felt paralyzed by the camera for weeks.
The upside? With just 17 million subscribers at the time, the network wasn't on anyone's radar. "Back then, you could make a mistake," Shine says. "No one was watching. It's not like now. There were no bloggers."
But fixing Hannity & Colmes was just the beginning for Shine. Today, he is the executive producer for Fox's entire prime time schedule, in charge of the network's three biggest shows: Hannity & Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor and On the Record With Greta Van Susteren . His top priority is ensuring the bookings, pace and topics stay hot. That means covering a wide range of stories, from abuses in Iraq's oil-for-food...