Fox Business to be rated by Nielsen

One of the problems in comparing CNBC to its main competitor, Fox Business Network, is that Fox Business has not had its shows rated by Nielsen, the primary tracker of television audiences.

That will soon end. Fox Business Network announced Wednesday it will become a full service client of Nielsen Media Research beginning March 28. The new arrangement with Nielsen will make its ratings fully available for the first time since the network launched in October 2007.

Paul Rittenberg, executive vice president of advertising sales, said in a statement, “As we enter into the new upfront season and continue to expand both our base of advertisers and network distribution, we felt it was the appropriate time to make our ratings fully available.”

Fox Business Network’s overnight ratings will be readily accessible to all subscribing Nielsen clients on a next-day basis. In addition, the network’s daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly ratings data will be available in all syndicated systems and reports. Respondent-level ratings data will also be available via all time-shifted data streams.

Fox Business is available in more than 50 million homes.