March / April 2008
Happy All the Time Fox Business Network’s populist sensibility is refreshing, sort of, but nobody’s watching. Here’s why
By Liza Featherstone
On January 4, Wall Street suffered big losses. On my TV, several non- celebrities had a lengthy and lively discussion about what, if anything, the Federal Reserve should do to fix the U.S. economy. The panel was critical of the financial community—which has been badgering the central bank to cut interest rates—for its narrow view of Fed policy. “What’s good for Wall Street isn’t necessarily good for everyone else,” one guest said, and everyone agreed.
No, it wasn’t CNBC, the General Electric-owned financial network, which provides serious economic information and analysis to the business class but rarely considers the economic interests of Americans outside its target demographic (that is, rich people working hard to get richer). If you saw this particular discussion, you were watching Fox Business Network. You’d also have been lonely: after nearly three months on the air, despite penetration into 30 million homes and extensive advertising and publicity, only about 6,300 people were watching during the daytime in late December, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates, which were leaked to the media in early January. About 283,000 were watching CNBC at that time.
When Rupert Murdoch launched Fox Business Network last October, many serious financial journalists felt queasy and apprehensive. With its pantheon of nubile babe reporters, FBN feels a little like a blowout party for American capitalism: imagine a Hugh Hefner-style gala at Rupert Murdoch’s pad. Its cheery blend of stock tips and celebrity gossip seemed to auger the tabloidization and dumbing-down of financial news. Many worried that the competition from Fox would destroy CNBC. Others feared FBN was a right-wing conspiracy, concerns not allayed by promises from network officials that theirs would be the “pro-business” network. (As if CNBC were “anti-business.”)
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