Liza Featherstone at mediachannel.org has an excellent article explaining why FOX Business Network, despite the backing of the biggest, most powerful media conglomerate in history, has only managed to get a shockingly miniscule 6,300 viewers a day despite penetration into 30 million homes. These are the five main reasons I found:

Reason #1: Despite their alleged goal of providing financial information for the average middle-American viewer, they don’t.

Other matters of interest to Middle America—but not to most conservative pundits—include the widening income inequality and the rising cost of college education and health care; none of these gets much attention on FBN either. And while Main Street is increasingly interested in the growing “green” opportunities for small entrepreneurs, on this issue Fox populism sometimes shades into know-nothing-ism; anchor Cheryl Casone routinely objects to alternative energy with this insight: “The problem is that sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.” –snip-

What’s really missing from Fox is, oddly, the actual perspective and experience of the average Joe, to whom extensive lip service is given on air. –snip-

We don’t meet—or hear the voices of—people losing their homes in foreclosure, telecom workers losing their jobs, small-business people struggling with health-care costs. We never even meet FBN’s favorite protagonist: the consumer trying to make ends meet.

Reason #2: FBN takes ridiculous pains to be relentlessly upbeat on the economy when reality dictates the opposite.

One of the weirdest things about Fox Business Network—and potentially most alienating to an economically anxious middle-class audience—is its relentless effort to squeeze upbeat news out of a terrible economy.

The housing market isn’t bad everywhere, commentators agreed one morning. “On the plane, I sat next to this woman whose boyfriend is in real estate in Kansas City,” one analyst, a regular on FBN’s morning show, offered, “and he’s doing really well!” A few days later, another “expert” countered a discouraging retail-sales number with this observation: “Anecdotally, I go to the store and people are still buying stuff.”

Reason #3: To remain relentlessly upbeat about the economy, FBN lies like dogs at a rug convention.

On January 10, in the wake of a Goldman Sachs report predicting recession, Cheryl Casone, struggling to find a silver lining, noted that “inventories were up, reflecting consumer confidence.” Actually, high inventories reflect just the opposite; inventory accumulates, of course, when people are not buying stuff. Throughout the same week, high sales by Wal-Mart and Costco were repeatedly cited as “bright spots” on a sorry retail landscape (when, in fact, if people are only shopping at discount retail stores, it may be a sign that they feel economically pressed).

Reason #4: FBN is relentlessly upbeat and dishonest to fulfill its role as propagandists for the republicans.

I was bewildered, and had to find out why they were all so happy. Weren’t we all looking at the same numbers? Or was good cheer some sort of right-wing talking point? It turns out that yes, it is. Dan Gainor, the Fox Business Network commentator, is also a vice president for the Business & Media Institute, a pro-free-market watchdog organization dedicated to criticizing “anti-business” bias in the media. He explained in an interview that coverage of the economy is far more negative when Republicans are in office. Conservatives see this as a sign of liberal bias. In the current political climate, Gainor adds, “a bad economy is seen as a launching pad for Democrat and left ideas.” So the Fox cheerleaders are correcting for what they see as a liberal slant toward negativity in mainstream media.

Reason #5: When FBN isn’t lying and cheerleading, it’s sucking.

At times, FBN is just plain dumb. Some of the Murdoch Playmates are genuine bimbos, while others play their dopey roles convincingly, and the choice of material they’re given isn’t pretty. One morning, Alexis Glick, the lusciously made-up anchor…dizzily conducts an inspiring interview with a woman who has broken the glass ceiling in the all-important industry of competitive beach volleyball. A few other critical, breaking stories on FBN, as the American economy careened into chaos and uncertainty, included a check-cashing fraud involving a corpse, and “the Meanest Mom on the Planet” (she sold her teenage son’s car after finding booze under the seat!)…While CNBC featured New York Times columnist David Leonhardt explaining substantive economic policy differences among the Republican candidates, Fox was reporting that despite her scandalous pregnancy, people are still watching Jamie Lynn Spears’s TV show.