Fox Business Network – Ratings Still Down the Toilet
April 20, 2009 at 2:45 PM 4 comments
The Hollywood Reporter posted an article last week about the how the financial/business news networks are scrambling to snare new viewers in light of the attention being paid to the financial crisis.
In the article, “Everybody’s Business,” they report that the Fox Business Network (FBN),
…has a lot of catching up to do given that it only launched a year and a half ago, reaches fewer homes and is on digital cable tiers. While Nielsen doesn’t officially track FBN or Bloomberg, figures obtained by THR show FBN was up 155% in March over the year-ago period, averaging nearly 40,000 viewers.
Ouch!
(In contrast, CNBC (which stands for Consumer News & Business Channel), averaged 281,000 viewers.)
In January of last year, three months after FBN debuted in October, 2007, its viewership was thought to be 6,300 (on an average day).
In April, ’08, MediaBistro reported that Dave Ramsey’s FBN show – one show – was rating in the 40,000′s and 50,000′s.
So, though FBN may have been “up 155% in March over the year-ago period,” the take-away from that stat is that something like 500 people were watching last March.
No wonder News Corp. doesn’t want to release FBN’s numbers – though immediately after FNB’s launch they said they would begin doing so within six to nine months. Guess not, which can only mean that they are stunningly bad (as confirmed by the Hollywood Reporter). If they were good, Fox would make damn sure we knew it.
Entry filed under: Financial Crisis, Fox "News"/ Fox "Business" /Rupert Murdoch / Wall Street Journal, WingNutO'Sphere. Tags: .
1.
ChrisH | April 20, 2009 at 3:48 PM
Dave Ramsey can be summed up in a few soundbites – do’t go into debt; if you are in debt, pay it off; save; pay cash – which is sound advice, but not enough to keep a network afloat. As we’ve learned the hard way, finance and economics are serious pursuits for serious people, and face it, that is not the FOX demographic. Too bad for Murdoch (heehee) his “news” channel ruined his reputation for serious, intelligent presentation and discussion. FBN will never be taken seriously.
2.
lurkerlou | April 20, 2009 at 4:04 PM
Do you know how to freaking count or do you even know what daily average means?
Averaging 40,000 daily viewers year over year. 155% increase… How can that be 500 viewers last March?
It would be about 16,000 daily viewers…
Quit drinking the liberal kool-aid. FBN was averaging 6300+ daily viewers when the 1st ratings came out, now they are averaging 40,000 daily viewers according to that article.
They’re afternoon shows probably average more then 40K, dragged down by their earlier morning shows that get fewer viewers so they average out to 40K for the day.
Almost a 7x increase in viewership with them being mostly on digital tier, only in about 50 million homes, where CNBC is like 98 million homes.
Keep bashing FBN. Just like everyone else did to Fox News. Now they mostly beat at every hour CNN, MSNBC, HLN combined lol.
3.
Say It Ain't So Already | April 20, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Gee. I was betting it would take longer than 70 minutes for a comment like the second one to come in.
Oh, and where’s the sense of humor – re the 500 viewers. Relax!
4.
Say It Ain't So Already | April 20, 2009 at 5:45 PM
As is typical with Fox News watchers, they talk out of both sides of their mouths. Lurkerlou posted the below comment to a post I put up about Ed Schulez up on April 9:
lurkerlou Says:
April 10, 2009 at 8:34 AM e
” My sense is that Schultz is drunk on his newfound success ”
I think you’re the one drunk if you think 406K total viewers and 119K demo viewers is newfound sucess lol…
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_wednesday_april_8_113702.asp