The first official ratings for the Fox Business Network reveal that the new enterprise is somewhat less than promising:
“For the first three weeks of July, according to Nielsen figures obtained yesterday that have not been publicly released, Fox Business Network is averaging just 8,000 viewers during daytime hours, and 20,000 in prime time.
CNBC, by contrast, is drawing an average of 284,000 viewers during the day and 191,000 in prime time.
Fox News Executive VP Kevin Magee immediately unleashed a torrent of excuses:
“It’s a slow-growing business, but it is a growing business. I don’t think anybody here expected us to be on top by the first summer, and we’re not.” Anyone who believes otherwise is “probably delusional.”
However, ten months ago CEO Roger Ailes boasted that:
“I’m not interested in anything short of a revolution.”
I guess he must have meant one of those slow-growing revolutions.
Yeah, I blogged on this.
Before I was essentially shown the door by your buddy J$, I brought up the fact with him and his fellow Kool-Aid drinkers that a business news channel is a completely different ballgame than a news channel.
With Fox News obviously right-wing media spin-doctor Ailes was playing on conservative angst by creating a propaganda machine akin to the highly popular right-wing talk radio format.
However, business news is dry stuff. Even politically right-wing businessmen want nothing but the facts when it comes to earning a buck. Without the cheap ratings gimmicks of spinning hard to the right and pumping out the low brow tabloid trash, Fox Business News has no competitive advantage.
Well, that’s not wholly true. Rupert did buy The Wall Street Journal. If he can find a way to leverage that with Fox Business News maybe he can make lemonade out of lemons.
Alas, even Fox’s standard trick of hiring brainless, short skirt cheesecake teleprompter readers won’t work any magic. Nothing gives a businessman a stiffy like a greenback. 😉
FBN thinks they can create a network that appeals to main street, not wall street, but even main streeters aren’t interested in stories about the Naked Cowboy and MyFreeBreastImplants (two real FBN segments).
Murdock intends to repackage FBN into the Wall Street Journal Channel after 2012 when the Journal’s contract with CNBC expires.
The problem for Murdoch and Ailes is the mass market isn’t interested in a business channel. This is a very specialized market comprised of very serious businessmen who don’t have the time or interest to watch a bunch of fluff.
As luck would have it, I happened to spend some vacation time with a millionaire who’s idea of fun was to watch the ticker symbols crawl across the screen on CNBC.
Neil Cavuto who’s infamous for running cheesecake through through Your World can feature a girls gone wild marathon on Fox Business but he’s wasting his time. The minute the content shifts back to serious business news Main Street is going to dive for the remote.
I believe Fox news just doesn’t like Ron Paul and his views. Bill O’reily was very rude to him. The news should be reported not shaped.