Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fox Business Network's mass appeal

Kenneth Li of Reuters takes a look at the upcoming Fox Business Network launch on Oct. 15 and reports that advertisers such as United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and discount broker Scottrade have signed on as advertisers.

Sprint Nextel, Fidelity and IBM have deals to advertise on the Fox Business website.

Li wrote, “‘When someone asks ‘Who are you targeting?’ I say, ‘Everyone,” Neil Cavuto, Fox News managing director of business news, said in an interview. ‘I don’t know why or where it’s written that business news has been relegated to … old white men with money.’

“FBN’s creation defies some well-established industry logic. Business news lacks mass appeal, the logic goes, as evident by Time Warner Inc.’s decision to shutter the CNNfn channel in 2004. The U.S. economy may be headed to recession. And the market already has a well established incumbent in CNBC.

“‘Historically, financial channels on cable have done well in boom markets and crashes, and terribly in bear markets,’ independent network news analyst Andrew Tyndall said.”

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.