Assessing Fox Business Network, Two Years Later
Reach: We spoke to several people in the business world – from traders to high level execs and beyond. The importance of the viewing habits of these individuals has always been an interesting point, since no one who watches the biz nets at work are counted toward Nielsen ratings. These extra eyeballs go unnoticed in the ratings – but that doesn’t make them unimportant. In many ways, it’s a brag point by the networks. To go to a trading floor or hedge fund and see what network is on in the lobby only solidifies a channel’s place in the business world.
Everyone we spoke to echoed the main sentiment that CNBC is still the network of choice for those on Wall Street. That’s a given – it has been around the longest and it’s going to take a lot for the companies to make a big switch. But there were varying degrees of how much CNBC still dominated the landscape.
One former Merrill Lynch prime brokerage professional who sat on Merrill’s trading floor and visited with hundreds of hedge funds over the course of his career told Mediaite, “Inevitably they’ve got CNBC on. Occasionally I’ve seen Bloomberg. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen Fox on, maybe on three fingers. It would take someone with a total aversion to mainstream news or maybe a conservative bent to news.”
He went on: “I think Fox was kind of hoping there would be a ripple, but I’ve never seen it. Certainly at Merrill, I’ve never seen it on two massive trading floors. Even at hedge funds, where you might see more free thinking, contrarian thinking…I’m sure half of Wall Street has a political leaning that’s very much in line with Fox, but you definitely don’t see it.” He did note there was one hedge fund that had made the switch to FBN.
Still others we talked to had stories of places that have made the FBN switch – including many TVs on Citibank’s trading floor, and individual hedge funds. Ted Weisberg, President of Seaport Securities, has spent more than 40 years on an active trading floor. He told Mediaite that while Bloomberg plays in the office lobby, in their New York Stock Exchange trading floor booth they watch Fox Business Network. He says the NYSE is a mix of people watching CNBC, Bloomberg, FBN and CNN.
With it’s appeal to “main street” over “Wall Street,” the reach into the business news world is less important for FBN than another network. And there’s no way to get a gauge of what every single TV on every single trading floor is tuned to. The fact that there are some converts to FBN shouldn’t be surprising, and the fact that CNBC is still dominating in the arena shouldn’t either. While Bloomberg has their terminals, providing the main source of info (over cable news) for many in the financial sector, CNBC continues to maintain a large lead in the appeal to its community of business professionals.
Talent: One thing that benefits the young network is it’s pipeline to the biggest cable news channel of the moment, by far – Fox News. Using FNC as a platform to bring on FBN talent, but also promote FBN shows and interviews, can only serve to continually boost the new business network.
Neil Cavuto currently hosts shows on both networks, but many other FBN talent make regular appearance on FNC as well. Jenna Lee makes hits during the day with business news updates, and Alexis Glick, who now is anchoring less on FBN with Imus in place but also has an exec position, is a regular on FNC’s prime time shows. Others, like Peter Barnes in Washington, serve in a lead reporter role on financial stories during more newsy shows like Special Report. Eric Bolling is the regular fill in on the hugely popular Glenn Beck Program.
Bolling’s day job (or early evening job) is co-host of Happy Hour, a free-wheeling 5pmET hour on FBN that films live in Bull & Bear bar at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. With two other hosts, Cody Willard and Rebecca Diamond, the differing personalities make for an interesting dynamic (resulting in tweets like this). But an FBN insider tells us the show has seen infighting among the talent.
Bolling responds to Mediaite: “You have three very opinionated and outspoken people with only 60 minutes to play with. What might be perceived as infighting may actually just be aggressively pursuing airtime.”
As new names join the network (next page), will others who have been there from the beginning, and have not brought strong ratings, be feeling the pressure to stay active and visible?
