Categories: OLD Media Moves

Fox's tricks won't work with CNBC

David Bauder of The Associated Press writes Sunday about the upcoming Fox Business Channel and notes that Fox is using the same tactics it used a decade ago when it launched its news channel to compete against CNN.

But trying to define its competition for the audience may not work in business news, some experts he quoted stated.

Bauder wrote, “Like a boxer training before a fight, CNBC has also made several changes in the two years since Mark Hoffman became president. It has added a business newsmagazine, retooled ‘Squawk Box’ and added the popular ‘Fast Money.’

“What worked in politics is not likely to work in business, said Porter Bibb, of Wall Street’s Mediatech Partners and author of a biography on CNN founder Ted Turner released the year after Fox News Channel started.

“Bibb believes CNBC’s advantage will be too much for Fox to overcome. CNBC, which started in 1989, is in more than 90 million of the nation’s 110 million homes; Fox will start this fall in 30 million homes. There’s usually room for only one TV on the desks of business leaders, and it will stay tuned to CNBC, he said.

“In this case, Fox’s criticism of CNBC as anti-business doesn’t make much sense, he said.

“‘You can ask anybody on Wall Street and they will tell you that’s the hollowest threat,’ Bibb said. ‘CNBC is totally user-friendly in terms of business and finance.'”