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.

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.”