Fox Business Network programming being reviewed

Inside Cable News reports that the programming of Fox Business Network is under review by the executives at Fox.

It writes, “Some will no doubt immediately leap to the conclusion that this is a clear sign that the network is in trouble as it makes some pretty serious changes to its programming. I’m not convinced that this is automatically a given. First of all, any network worth its salt is going to have reviews of some sort, though the sort of meeting described in the first paragraph sounds atypical. Second, some of the FBN cancellations appear to be cost related, at least in part. Your Questions, Your Money in particular was expensive to produce given that the technical staff were all weekday workers doing voluntary overtime, which costs a lot more. Third, internally, morale is good at the network. Morale is never good at a network that’s in trouble.

“A fourth point, which is often ignored or downplayed by critics, is that FBN’s clock is not yet ticking at News Corp. and won’t be for another two years at least. The reason? CNBC’s deal with Dow Jones. It’s become increasingly clear to me that FBN is in something of a holding albeit evolving pattern that will continue until FBN can finally get its hands on Dow Jones. Everything that transpires regarding FBN before that moment is merely an attempt to put the proper framework in place so that when FBN does have full unfettered access to Dow Jones it will be in the best position possible to take advantage of the situation. Regardless of how the critics and outsiders judge FBN now, News Corp. will remain unfazed until FBN can tap in to Dow Jones.”