Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fox Business Network aiming at wrong audience

Henry Blodget writes on Silicon Alley Insider that the upcoming Fox Business Network is aiming for the wrong audience if it wants to be successful.

Blodget, who was responding to comments made by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch that CNBC focuses too much on negative business news,Â wrote, “We hear him on CNBCs scandal-mongering, but here are three questions: First, does Main Street really care enough about business to watch a financial news channel all day?Â (We understand that this is the way Fox News ambushed CNN, but we think business news is different.Â Car crashes, murders, fires, crime, and wars are inherently exciting to non-practitioners; business isn’t).Â

“Second, if there are some Main Streeters out there who want to watch business 24/7, do they really want to watch the dumbed-down version?Â Third, which audience is more valuable to advertisers: Unemployed folks seeking inspirational diversion from soap operas (who else has the time to watch business news all day?)–or the cream of the discretionary income crop?”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.