Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fox Business Network strategy has been tried before

Michael Learmonth of Variety writes Friday that the Fox Business Network strategy of appealing to the masses has been tried before at CNNfn and failed.

Learmonth wrote, “The approach, appealing to the American consumer as well as the professional investor, has been tried before, notably by CNNfn, which didn’t survive the dot-com crash. The question is, can Fox Business take on CNBC and entertain Main Street in these uncertain times?

“NYSE traders are abuzz over the studio the network is building over the historic trading floor. But one week before its launch, the game of predicting how Ailes intends to interpret business for the masses has taken on an aspect of media-world Kremlin-watching.

“Madison Avenue got a pitch but no specifics on the network,churning the rumor mill into overdrive ahead of the channel’s Oct. 15 debut. What former CNBC personalities will land there? Would Ailes really launch a show titled ‘The Bear Cave’ stocked with Wall Street pessimists?”

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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.