Best Business Commentary

FBN: Successful like a Fox?

“Does Fox Business have a chance?” says Ronald Grover in BusinessWeek.com. “You bet.” Rupert Murdoch’s new business news network “ain’t your grandfather’s business channel,” but “that’s the point.” It’s true that “not everything works” about the new channel—“the pre-market show, Money for Breakfast, looks like a coffee klatch at Grandma’s house.” But the rest of the offerings have enough “sparkle” to “bring in the younger viewers Fox specializes in luring.” And that is its innovation. FBN will expand the business-news audience through both “clever segments and substantial market coverage.” If I were CNBC, I’d be “hustling full-time to stay ahead.”

With its “mind-boggling” lack of substance, “Fox Business is on to something,” says John Gapper in the Financial Times. Its business-lite format even “has a bracing honesty to it.” While CNBC strives to give you “the inside track on what Wall Street is really doing,” FNB is looking to tap what it views as a largely “untapped desire for business infotainment.” And that’s fine with Wall Street. After the tech bubble burst, the Street decided that “retail investors are more trouble than they are worth.” Today’s individual investors are “hopelessly outgunned” by the pros, so if they insist on watching business TV, they might as well treat it as “entertainment rather than investment advice.”

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