Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald writes about Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, whose new show debuted March 15.
Garvin writes, “Dobbs is equally surprised that anyone’s surprised he would join Fox Business, which, four years after its launch, remains a bit player in the television news business. The network has signed several marquee business-news names — Stuart Varney, Neil Cavuto, Charlie Gasparino and Dobbs among them — and nearly doubled its cable subscription base to 57.3 million homes. But viewers remain elusive ; depending on the time of the day, rival CNBC’s audience is two to four times that of Fox Business.
“Fox Business executives expect to make major inroads next year when programs using the name and staffers of The Wall Street Journal (which now belongs to Fox Business’ corporate parent News Corp.) switch over to the network from CNBC. At least until then, however, Dobbs is performing for an audience of perhaps 110,000 people. It doesn’t bother him.
“‘This is not new for me,’ Dobbs says. ‘I was on the executive committee at CNN for years. I have significant management experience. I did a number of start-ups, including CNN itself and then CNNfn [a business-news network CNN operated from 1995 to 2004]. I love start-ups. The challenge of being an underdog doesn’t dissuade me. It’s all the more attractive to be a start-up and help build something. Building a business is the most exciting thing you can possibly do, in my opinion.'”
