Four years later, Fox Business treading water

D.M. Levine of AdWeek writes Thursday about the ratings of Fox Business Network, which celebrated its four-year anniversary last month.

Levine writes, “It was an abysmal month for Fox News’ young sibling channel. Fox Business Network saw an average daily viewership of around 65,000 for October, according to Nielsen, which also happened to be the month of the network’s four-year anniversary. In its target 25-54 demo, though, Fox Business only drew an average of 10,000 viewers per day. This, compared to the network’s chief competitor, CNBC, which saw around 201,000 viewers on average and 59,000 in the 25-54 age group. A source familiar with the network says that four years in, they expected Fox Business to be performing ‘a lot better than 10,000 in the target demo.’

“Adding to the network’s woes is the fact that Don Imus’ program, Imus in the Morning, which Fox Business debuted in 2009 as the network’s daily morning kickoff program, is performing miserably—with an average of just 5,000 daily viewers in the target demographic for the month and 90,000 total viewers. By comparison, Squawk Box, which airs on FBN’s chief competitor CNBC at the same time as Imus’ show, received 179,000 total viewers on average for the month and outdelivered Imus in the target demographic by more than 1,100 percent, with 65,000 viewers.

“There is one relatively bright spot for Fox Business—its early prime-time 4 p.m.-8 p.m. slate, which includes shows like Cavuto and Lou Dobbs Tonight. The network pulled around 85,000 average daily viewers for the month, including 12,000 viewers in its target demographic, during those hours. But even that figure is still well behind the 212,000 total viewers CNBC received for that same time slot.”

Read more here.