The channel broadcasts news, political commentary, satire and talk shows, all of which are presented from a right-wing perspective.
[1] In 1997, the Ministry of Communications August 1997 the government approved the report of the Yossi Peled Committee, which was established to prepare a proposal for expanding and reorganizing the public television and radio broadcasting system.
The Hirsch Media Group, owned by businessman Shlomo Ben-Zvi, was the only bidder and won the tender.
[8] After winning the tender, Thia Communications entered as a partner in half of the ownership,[9] but a conflict broke out between the two partner companies, the channel was not established due to lack of economic viability and the group's winning of the center to operate the channel was canceled in December 2006.
According to the terms of the tender, the equity of the owners of the channel must be 24 million shekels, the winner himself will provide a bond of three million shekels to comply with the terms of the license, the channel's broadcasts will be financed from the sale of advertisements and sponsorships, as well as from the sale of programs and parts of programs, and the channel's broadcasts need to cover issues related to Israel's heritage, to the Jewish religion, to the history, culture and tradition of the Jewish people in the Diaspora and in the State of Israel.
[22] The next day, the channel withdrew from the Israeli rating committee on the grounds that it violates its goal of having a reliable and objective measurement.
[24] In August 2017, the Cable and Satellite Council fined the channel 100,000 NIS, due to its refusal to host representatives of Reform and Conservative Judaism in its programs.
[citation needed] The most popular show on the channel is The Patriots, which features a panel of journalists and other activists discussing issues in the world, as well as commenting on social media posts from various people, and everyone is given a limited time to give an opinion.
[citation needed] Now 14's main news show is broadcast at 19:50 Israel time, and presented by Maggie Tabibi.
[51] On 11 November 2018, the channel aired an interview with Yitzhak Gabbai, who was convicted of setting fire to a Jewish/Arab bilingual school in Jerusalem and served three years in prison.
[53] In May 2021, Following a rocket attack in northern Israel, the reporter Kobi Finkler said on live: "One (missile) fell on a soccer field in a large Arab settlement and very unfortunately it did not result in mass casualties there".
[54] On 30 May 2022, the printed magazine of "Now 14" published an article entitled "LGBTistan: This is how the revolution is organized that exploits the LGBT and eats its children", by Gali Bat Horin.
On 28 March 2023, the magazine "Now 14" published an article entitled "This is how young people in Israel are led to castration and surgeries following the transgender ideology".
[55][56] On 21 February 2023, during the 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests, channel commentator Ari Shamai said on the program "The Patriots" that "these people (protestors) (...) are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Belial (Devil of the Hebrew Bible), who refused to fight against the Nazis in Warsaw Ghetto."
[57] Later on, Uri Shamai called for the release of the Jewish terrorist Yigal Amir who was convicted and senntenced for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
[42] The Logically Facts fact-checking site reported in 2024 that, According to The Times of Israel, the "incendiary right-wing" news broadcaster Channel 14 was a "largely dismissed bit player in the media industry" until its viewership grew exponentially in 2023, which sparked concern due to its "repeated scandals" and charges of "pro-Netanyahu propaganda."
The channel has been described as "the Israeli answer to Fox News" by Ayala Panievsky, a research fellow at Cambridge University and City University of London specializing in right-wing populism, who, in a 2023 opinion piece in the Israeli news outlet Haaretz, wrote that Channel 14 is "propagandistic.