Russell Crowe will be making his way onto the small screen soon to play controversial Fox News chief Roger Ailes in what will be the first US television series the Oscar winner has starred in.

Showtime has green-lit the eight-part limited series which is based on former New York writer Gabriel Sherman’s Roger Ailes biography, 'The Loudest Voice in the Room' which chronicles the rise and fall of the media mogul.

Ailes resigned from his job in 2016 following accusations of sexual harassment, and went on to be be an adviser to the Donald Trump campaign. He died last year from a subdural hematoma at aged 77.

When announcing the series, David Nevins, the president of the US cable channel Showtime, said: "In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today.

"We’ve seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era."