Roger Ailes, the long-time boss of Fox News, has resigned after a number of female employees accused him of sexual harassment.
The network's parent company, 21st Century Fox, announced his resignation.
The announcement does not mention the sexual harassment allegations, which have now come from multiple Fox presenters.
Executive chairman Rupert Murdoch wrote that Ailes has made a "remarkable contribution" to Fox News.
"We continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based
on trust and respect," Fox executives Lachlan Murdoch and James Murdoch
said in the statement. "We take seriously our responsibility to uphold
these traditional, long-standing values of our company."
Analysis: Nick Bryant, BBC News, New York
Roger Ailes has long been viewed one of America's most powerful
conservatives. The one-time media consultant to Richard Nixon was the
key figure in building the Fox News channel into a ratings, profits and,
most important perhaps, political powerhouse.
Prior to his dramatic and embarrassing downfall, Ailes was said to be
one of the few employees that Rupert Murdoch actually feared. But it
was the media mogul's admiration for his long-time lieutenant and
ideological soul-mate that came through in the warm statement released
by Fox News Channel's parent company, 21st Century Fox.
"His grasp of policy and his ability to make profoundly important
issues accessible to a broader audience stand in stark contrast to the
self-serving elitism that characterises far too much of the media," said
Rupert Murdoch, in a tribute that did not touch upon the allegations of
sexual harassment against the former news chief. Noticeably, it was
left to Murdoch’s sons, Lachlan and James, to point out that the company
is committed "to maintaining a work environment based on trust and
respect."
I'm told by a source close to the company that the Murdochs wanted to
move quickly, a lesson learnt from the handling of the phone hacking
scandal.
It's also measure of the importance that Murdoch attaches to the Fox
News channel that he is personally taking over as chairman and acting
CEO after losing one of the central figures in his global media empire.
What makes Ailes’ departure all the more dramatic is that it should
happen on the final day of the Republican convention at a time when a
deeply divided conservative movement was already in such a state of
flux.
Ailes, 76, said he was stepping down because he had become a "distraction".
"I will not allow my presence to become a distraction from the work
that must be done every day,” Ailes wrote in a letter to Rupert Murdoch.
He has run Fox News since it launched in 1996 and is credited with reshaping the American media and political landscape.
A veteran of Republican political campaigns, he turned the cable news
network into a ratings leader and an influential force in the
Republican Party.
"Rupert Murdoch is a conservative, but the Republican intensity, the
conservative passion including the viciousness toward the Democrats that
we now see against Hillary Clinton and has been going on against Obama
all these years, all that is Roger Ailes,'' Paul Levinson,
communications professor at Fordham University, told the AP news agency.
Less than two weeks ago former presenter Gretchen Carlson sued Ailes
for sexual harassment and wrongful termination, claims he denies.
Carlson, who worked for the network for 11 years, alleges that he
proposed having a sexual relationship with her and he instructed her to
turn around in his office so he could look at her backside.
Ailes also allegedly called her a "man hater" and that she needed to "get along with the boys".
A report in New York magazine, citing anonymous sources, said lawyers
for 21st Century Fox gave Ailes a deadline of 1 August to resign or
face being fired.
Further allegations surfaced in US media that Ailes sexually harassed
another Fox News presenter, Megyn Kelly, about 10 years ago, claims he
has also denied.
