Categories: OLD Media Moves

Murdoch not worried about low ratings for Fox Business

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, speaking on the Fox News Channel Monday afternoon about the company’s earnings, told Neil Cavuto that he is not worried about the low ratings for Fox Business Network.

Chris Ariens of Mediabistro wrote, “During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, Murdoch talked up News Corp.’s quarterly growth (net income up 1.2%). Then Cavuto ran the gamut with the big boss, talking about the Super Bowl, The Wall Street Journal, the writers’ strike, the 2008 race and FBN:

“‘When word leaked out about ratings people were saying ‘well, they’re off to a very slow start’ and competitors across the river connecting Manhattan and New Jersey said ‘a ha, they’re in deep trouble.’ You do not concur on that?’

“Murdoch: ‘Not at all, we’re very, very confident, and very proud of it and we thank you for your leadership of it.’

“Other highlights:

â€¢ Murdoch said the planned move of Wall Street Journal staffers from their downtown Manhattan offices to News Corp’s midtown HQ would ‘be for everybody’ and that ‘it would take a year’ to complete. ‘When you take over a company, and you want to make changes,’ Murdoch says ‘you do everything you can to change the culture, and a physical move is a big and useful thing to do.'”

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.