Rupert Murdoch is a patient man. But is he prepared to wait another 69 years to see his plans come to fruition?
That's how long it will take his new Fox Business Network (NWS) to catch CNBC in the ratings on its present trajectory. Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that FBN averaged 8,000 viewers during daytime programming and 20,000 viewers in primetime in the first three weeks of July. That's a little better than the numbers reported at the start of the year, when the channel was reaching 6,000 viewers during the day and 15,000 in the evening.
But at that rate of growth, it will be another 3,588 weeks, or 69 years, before FBN matches CNBC's daytime audience of 284,000. By then, Murdoch will be 146 years old, and on his seventh wife, if current trends hold (and assuming no growth in CNBC's numbers). Good thing he's in excellent health.
See for yourself:
As you can see, there is a silver lining here: It should only take FBN 17 years to overtake CNBC in primetime. And while Fox Business won't take the daytime crown until 2077, it will be killing CNBC in primetime by then.
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Update, 6:53 p.m.: I replaced an earlier, completely nonsensical version of the chart depicting FBN's projected ratings growth with this slightly less nonsensical version.
This article has 2 comments:
FBN has way better HD graphics and they give their guests just the right amount of time without losing the focus on the subject.
I watch both and I also watch Bloomberg it keeps me informed about the oversees markets.
FBN will gain audience Murdoch knows how to fine tune and adjust.
It isn't smart journalism either. It isn't intellectual. It isn't listening, but rather is often an attempt for the interviewer to show his or her prowess on the topic, not her/his apt ability to get the most out of the interviewee. There's quite a difference.
One of the worst in not listening, but in putting together a show with him showing off is Kudlow. He's a bright and knowledgeable guy, but should let the respondents respond without browbeating them as he frequently does. As the moderator--is that what he is? Really? I think it's the Now Let's Hear Kudlow's Reiterated Version and Put Down Hour or, more briefly, the Kudlow Soapbox. (Lou Dobbs, do you know what a soapbox is? Your show used to be among the best, before you got the Agenda from Sisyphus. -- I still like the Dobbs and hope that he will get off his high horse and address a greater variety of issues rather than hammering at the tried and true, which probably help his xenophobic faithful viewers get their daily dose of bile.)
Kudlow, who is a gifted speaker (as is Dobbs) should express a well-tuned question spoken with some subtlety. Avoid the shout fest, Mr. K. You're not on the trading floor. (NONE OF US LIKE TO BE SHOUTED AT! DO YOU?) Otherwise the announcer is insulting to his audience as well as the program participant. So much of t.v. journalism is repellent for it's lack of civility and for coming into an interview with a heavy bias and Kudlow's cheerleading for capitalism and democracy and flag waving all help to pale the relevance of the interviewees' comments, besides seeming to remind one of being in high school. Kudlow's show is at the level of the repulsively conservative, mindless democrat-bashing Foxx's Bulls and Bears in its abysmal bias toward business without morality. It's not ethical at all.
To see business and culture discussed with more sophistication, check out Bloomberg. The interviewers talk, discuss, listen, modify questions in appropriate ways without the snake oil histrionics of CNBC. How I miss CNNFN! (P.S. I like Squawk Box--except when Kudlow is pontificating.) (You're a good man, Kudlow. Just get some cool.)
There are good things on all these channels, just tone it down people. Don't insult the listener with your personal bias. Let us decide whether to "Drill, drill, drill" or not, rather than yelling it at us daily with sophomoric pedantry. Grow up.