Fox Business Network Off To Weak Start

The initial ratings for the newly launched business network are... crummy. According to new Nielsen's data, about 6,300 people are, on average, watching Fox Business Network on any given day. Nielsen's relevant figure for CNBC is something like 283,000.

Granted, Fox doesn't have CNBC's breadth of cable distribution, but the difference is, I think, considerably more stark than many of us expected. I'll be nice about this, and certainly not make any wisecracks about blog traffic versus Fox viewership, but it's a big difference -- which is too bad. Because, and I should be clear about this, I wanted FBN to innovate more, compete effectively and generally cause trouble.

So far, that hasn't happened. But hey, maybe Fox will now do what I initially suggested and stream live over the web.

Disclosure: I appear now and then on CNBC, so I'm horribly biased, unable to read Nielsen's data, etc.

Comments

[billb:]

I see your bias in displaying those number. 6K vs. 250K ... clearly 6K is better :)

Anyway, as an eager viewer, I was really ready to see Fox do to CNBC what they did to CNN for regular news. I only watched a couple of days before I was completely bored. I was honestly hoping for a cross between Bloomberg (super dry) and CNBC (a lot of useless predictions, forecasts and egos sprinkled with bits of market news). Eric Bolling was a good example of what I wanted to see a lot more of. Someone who's been there, can provide some real insight as a trader. Not as a journalist of "analyst". Well, I'm not even sure if Eric is on any longer, but after they kept interrupting him asking him to explain the "jargon" of a P/E ratio for the 100th time, I couldn't watch it any more. I also tried the evening lineup and it seemed geared towards financially ignorant people (i.e. Suze Orman type shows). In my stereotypical mind, most financially dumb people are off watching American Idol or finding out the latest Britney story. They're not watching financial television.

So my bottom line here is that they're going after a demographic that simply isn't there and the numbers are confirming this. Now Fox News was not a hit in its first week, but I can clearly recollect my experience watching FNC for the first time and I heard the pop. I knew they were on to something. No pop on the FBN, unfortunately.

2008 Jan 04 07:16 AM

[No Stable E...:]

They have better videos on WSJ website. They need to borrow some for the TV channel.

2008 Jan 04 10:01 AM

[Malkiel:]

It didn't help Fox that some of their earlier condemnations of CNBC for "not being friendly to business" gave the clear impression that they would engage in the same systematic propagandizing for a point of view that they do with politics and ordinary news. I don't think people educated enough to know what propaganda is deliberately go looking for it...

2008 Jan 04 11:08 AM

[sbenard:]

I'd like to watch FBN, but they aren't available yet on my cable network. I've requested them more than once.
I like the idea of a webcast service that they author here suggested. I would put it on full screen and watch/listen instead of CNBC. I agree with other commentors here that the CNBC people are too egotistical. I'm hungry for an alternative.

2008 Jan 04 11:44 PM

[gao xia en:]

Maybe Murdock's mouthpieces should stop manipulating the news and start covering it.

2008 Jan 05 12:25 AM

[gao xia en:]

News Corp's stock is in a nosedive, in case you haven't noticed.

2008 Jan 05 12:27 AM

[Tristan Yates:]

FBN doesn't have an audience because they haven't defined one. Who is the channel for exactly? For a business channel it seems like they would have thought a little more about customers and unique selling points. Put on a show about something new and interesting like IPOs in Asia or Carlos Slim's corporate empire or different kinds of REITs and I'll watch.

2008 Jan 05 04:45 AM

[intaicheong:]

I wish I could watch FoxBusiness Channels very much but Comcast, the poorest cable service provider does not show the channels. I prefer Fox because Fox is somewhat conservative although too many democrats, the perpetual immoral liars show up making me vomit, compared to hopelessly liberals, the democrats totally dominate, signaling USA is dead on breathing machine.

2008 Jan 05 05:17 PM

[Dan Jacome:]

Tristan is right, NWS never bothered to segment their projected customer and the channel is nonsense.

CNBC will eat their lunch.

There simply is not room fore another channel, the idiots @ FBN thought they could parlay a duoploy into a triopoly and are now learning the hard truth.

2008 Jan 05 08:33 PM