PASADENA, Calif. – Fox News wants to go prime time, and dance on the year’s biggest political stage – election night.

Having already built a cable-news outfit from scratch in October, 1996 to more than 50 million homes today, network executives say they’re eagerly looking forward to Nov. 7, when local affiliates will carry Fox election night coverage.

“We’re going to do extensive convention coverage,” Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes told a gathering of television critics last week.

He also said that for the first time, the Fox Broadcast Network will provide election-night coverage “for five hours. We’ll come up at 7, go to 10, and then carry an additional couple of hours for the Midwest and West Coast.”

It’s a natural move for a news operation that’s been honing its craft through cable, Ailes said.

TV networks have ceded breaking news and political coverage to such cable outfits as CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.

“If something breaks in the middle of the day, you’re going to tune in to CNN or us, or one of the other cable channels,” Ailes said. “You’re not going to go to a broadcast network because you don’t expect to get it there.”

Fox is owned by New Corporation, which also owns The Post.

Ailes, Fox News managing editor Brit Hume and anchor Paula Zahn met with reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour late last week. Answering a question about alleged liberal bias in news media, Hume took a shot at journalists who covered the Elian Gonzalez story.

“There was a lot of reporting … that suggested Elian Gonzalez’s life in Cuba might really be better than the life he would be offered here in the United States,” Hume said.

“I think that reflects a bias. It’s unmistakable.”