Fox News Channel is 30 years young today, and America — and the world — will never be the same.

The 24-hour news platform founded by Rupert Murdoch clobbers its rivals in the ratings and helps set the daily agenda in corridors of power from City Hall to Washington, DC, to the Kremlin.

Of course, Fox News’ contribution can hardly be measured only in audience size. It’s not merely the most influential conservative major televised news organization, but a vibrant, colorful and often controversial foil to the liberal and leftist voices that dominate broadcast and cable news.

Fox News routinely scoops its competitors on subjects they prefer to ignore. While the two major competing news networks, CNN and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), were buying into the woke worldview of Democratic Party elected officials and even pandered to proponents of trans athletes on women’s sports teams, FNC took its brave, solitary path in exposing corruption in the Obama and Biden administrations.

It routinely calls out the policies of blue-state mayors in Chicago and Portland who brought ruin to their cities strewn with homeless drug addicts and street criminals.

Alone among televised media, Fox News Channel’s reporters and commentators shed doubt on the widely believed animal-spillover theory of COVID-19. They gave well-earned air time to Wuhan lab-leak proponents and stood their ground when assailed by The New York Times and the rest of the mediasphere.

For sure, FNC stands vindicated now that scientists and even some competing media accept the pandemic likely began with a lab leak.

Not only news coverage, but popular programs such as “The Five,” “Hannity” and “Gutfeld!” are must-views in homes, airport lounges and hotel lobbies from coast to coast.

The channel today reaches more than 60 million US homes and is seen in 90 countries. But nobody could guess what clout Fox News would eventually have on Oct. 7, 1996, when its first day of programming reached a paltry 10 million US homes and under 500,000 in the Big Apple.

Skeptics said it wouldn’t last and would end up as a footnote to News Corp’s history — or even embarrassingly flop like Ford Motor Company’s Edsel.

When Fox News opened its studio at 1211 Sixth Ave. with a party under a tent in October 1996, I, too, wondered if they knew what they were doing.

After all, the New York Post — housed in the same Midtown building — was a stone’s throw from its 200th anniversary. Would Fox News Channel ever claim such a milestone?

But last week, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott was inducted at the Ziegfeld Ballroom into the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame. With reason: FNC’s ratings grew steadily under her leadership since 2018, and today whips its cable competition by 2-1 in viewership.

If history’s any guide, Fox News Channel can look forward to 30 more years. Or — who knows? — 200 more.