Claman talks about the early days of Fox Business

Mark Joyella of Forbes interviewed Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman about the network’s early days.

Joyella writes, “Fox had hired Claman away from CNBC, where her show Morning Call had been the network’s top ratings performer, finishing in first place for eight consecutive quarters. Claman told me that after nine years at CNBC, she was ready to leave business news altogether—until Fox called.

“‘I was just kind of done,’ she said. ‘I had done nine years there. And then Fox announced it was going to have a business network, and I thought to myself, ‘well that’s nice—for them.’’ But Claman says the pitch from Fox convinced her to sign on, painting a vision of a network that as Rupert Murdoch said at the time would be about Main Street, not Wall Street. ‘Talking to them, I realized ‘I’ve got to work for these people.’’

“Murdoch was ready to build on the success of the Fox News Channel, and he’d just become a force in business journalism with his $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones, publisher of the most powerful brand in business, The Wall Street Journal. Still, few were convinced Fox Business could compete with CNBC, which had just disposed of CNN’s competing business channel, CNNfn, which folded in 2004 after nine years of failing to make inroads into CNBC’s dominance.”

Read more here.