CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg Television and market share

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

With Fox Business Network announcing Tuesday that it would start having its shows tracked by Nielsen in terms of audience size, Talking Biz News decided to see what available information was already out there in terms of business news audiences on television.

Data is already available for CNBC and Fox Business Network, but scarce to find for Bloomberg Television.

According to the 2010 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey, which looks at heads of households with more than $100,000 in annual income, CNBC has an audience of just less than 13.1 million viewers. That’s almost twice the number of viewers of Fox Business Network, which has 5.3 million such viewers, and Bloomberg Television, which has 2.6 million such viewers, combined.

From the same Mendelsohn survey, CNBC reaches about one third of all C-level executives and about 30 percent of all affluent consumers. Fox Business reaches more than 10 percent of affluent consumers, and about 14 percent of C-level executives.

Both CNBC and Fox Business reach more C-level executives and affluent consumers than any other business media, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Television and Yahoo Finance, according to the Mendelsohn survey.

According to Nielsen Marketbreaks data for the first quarter through March 22, CNBC has an audience of 269,000 viewers when the stock market is open — from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST.  In comparison, Fox Business Network has 57,000 viewers during the same time period. In the key demographic of 25 to 54 year olds, CNBC has 55,000 viewers during that time period, while Fox Business has 8,000 viewers.

In terms of market share, that gives CNBC an 83 percent share and Fox Business a 17 percent share of the total audience during market hours.

During the business day, CNBC’s audience is 219,000, with 53,000 of those being between 25 and 54 years old, for the first quarter through March 22. Fox Business Network’s audience is again 57,000 viewers, with 11,000 in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic. In terms of market share, CNBC has a 79 percent share of the business day audience, compared to 21 percent for Fox Business.

The data for Fox Business includes “Imus in the Morning.”

Nielsen estimates that CNBC is currently in 98.4 million homes, while Fox Business Network is in 57.3 million homes. In October 2007, when Fox Business launched, it was in 30 million homes compared to 94.8 million homes for CNBC at that time.