How Varney helps Fox Business ratings

Brian Flood of The Wrap writes about the success of Stuart Varney‘s show on Fox Business Network.

Flood writes, “Fox Biz’s ‘Varney & Co’ cut into CNBC’s time-slot lead every month from November 2015 thru May 2016. The show’s namesake feels that the network’s approach has helped ratings just as much as the lineup changes. Varney describes the ‘old way’ of doing business news as covering cooperative CEOs, The Federal Reserve and earnings per share.

“‘It was all about jargon, which I really don’t like,’ Varney said. ‘That was maybe OK in the 1980s and the 1990s when business news was first appearing, but now it’s a different world. Wall Street is widely unpopular, so don’t use Wall Street jargon and if you do, you turn the viewers off.’

“Varney and FBN were looking for a new way to cover business news and realized nobody wanted to hear standard CEO interviews anymore. Especially since the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002 was passed by Congress to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations.

“‘A CEO interview doesn’t do you much good because they cannot answer questions. They’re terrified of a lawsuit,’ Varney said. ‘We concentrate a lot on the companies, which people know, and their products, which people use and the trends within the industry.'”

Read more here.