FBN at Brave New Films

Five Reasons Why Only 6,300 Viewers Watch FOX Business Network

2008-07-25T20:08:26Z

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.

FOX Business Network Tanks With Just 6,300 Viewers A Day

2008-07-09T15:34:11Z

FOX Business Network promised to bring "fun" to investing when it launched back in October. But according to FBN's ratings, their idea of "fun" looks more like a game of solitaire.

According to early estimates by Nielsen Media Research, FBN averaged approximately 6,300 viewers a day in its first two months. A DAY! In contrast, Brave New Films had 15,000 total viewers during our live Iowa caucus coverage, and that's without the millions FBN spends for ads. In fact, FBN's numbers are so abysmally low that Nielson barely acknowledges them. From the NY Times:

While Nielsen, at the network’s request, has measured the viewership of Fox Business since its premiere, Nielsen is not permitted to release or even confirm those figures publicly. That is because they are so low as to fall below Nielsen’s minimum standards for reporting, said Gary Holmes, a Nielsen spokesman.

FBN and CNBC have both paid to receive FBN's weekly ratings reports, so you can probably guess who leaked those embarrassing numbers. So is this a case of a scrappy startup struggling to find its audience? Hardly. FBN isn't a startup as much as it is a sequel or a spinoff, with FOX "star" Neil Cavuto playing the role of post-"Friends" Joey Tribbiani. And it's not like FBN emerged in obscurity:

Few new channels have been able to draw on the vast promotional resources that are at the disposal of Fox Business, which is part of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s $70 billion global media empire. (CNBC is a unit of NBC Universal, which is a part of General Electric.)

In an advertising campaign that has sprawled across television screens, billboards and magazine pages, the News Corporation has sought to hitch the fortunes of Fox Business directly to Fox News Channel, which draws millions of viewers a day.

FBN's ratings are about 2% of what CNBC receives, though CNBC is shown in three times more homes than FBN. But my feeling is that FBN's feeble numbers have more to do with concept than startup pains.

FOX Business Uses Astrology, O’Reilly Thinks Nazis “Made Valid Points”

2008-07-09T15:45:14Z

Seems like the only time you hear about FOX Business is when they’ve done something so irresistibly mockable that people can’t help writing about it, despite the fact that no one seems to be watching FBN.

But I sure wish I’d been watching last Tuesday. On the Dec. 11 Money For Breakfast, Fred Barnes interviewed astrologer Constance Stellas to help predict how much the Fed would cut interest rates. An astrologer. Who wrote “The Everything Sex Signs Book” and “The Astrology Gift Guide”. On a business show. On a business channel.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Stellas predicted that Fed Chief Ben Bernanke would cut the interest rate by half a point. The image above shows the list of Bernanke’s traits as a Sagittarius that helped Stellas make her prediction. Bernanke cut rates by a quarter point. The Dow dove 294 points.

FOX Business was supposed to bring “fun” to business news. I can just imagine one of the seven people watching FBN thinking, “Hey, I just saw thousands of my hard-earned dollars evaporate because I made investment choices based on the advice of an FBN-sanctioned astrologer. Am I having fun yet?”

And yes, on December 13, Bill O’Reilly attempted to rebut Jane Hall when she said that Tim Robbins made some valid criticisms of the way the press covers John Edwards by saying:

O'REILLY: But Von Ribbentrop in the Nazi hierarchy made valid points, Jane.

And who is Ribbentrop? Media Matters looked into it:

Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop was indicted for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal. Ribbentrop was found guilty on all counts and executed.

Guess that damn liberal Nuremberg Tribunal didn’t think Ribbentrop’s points were that “valid”. But Bill O’Reilly does. Kind of makes you think...

Watch the video

SHOCKING! FOX "Business" Edits Bad Reviews to Make Them Positive

2008-07-09T11:42:42Z

I was shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that the honest, upstanding folks at the FOX “Business” Network would take someone’s words out of context to completely change and distort their meaning. After all, that’s usually left to FOX Noise where they continually mangle the words of John Murtha on Haditha, Barack Obama on air strikes, and Hillary Clinton on everything else. Imagine my surprise to learn that FBN is doing the same thing! I nearly swooned!

See, the problem is that FBN sucks. If you’ve ever watched more than 30 seconds of any Noise business show, this should come as no surprise (it certainly didn’t to me). No one is giving FBN good reviews. So what does FOX or Bush or republicans do when reality contradicts what they want to be true? LIE!

That’s why FBN used this “positive” quote from the Toronto Globe and Mail in a promo:

They set out to change the face of financial news…and they darn well did.

When the real quote is:

They set out to change the face of financial news…and they darn well did. Now, please change it back….Perhaps, in time, Fox Business will find the secret formula that makes people want to drink up the financial minutia needed to fill a day's coverage on a business TV channel. But judging by yesterday's debut performance, they're not there yet.

I guess FBN didn’t want to use Variety’s review:

Based on a sampling during the net’s premiere week, the result is a parade of Stepford anchors, reporters and pundits…Neil Cavuto — the signature primetime voice — practically crawled into GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s lap to be read a no-newtaxes bedtime story. He’s followed nightly by preening gasbag David Asman, another Fox News transplant.

Or this one from Reuters:

"There are teething problems," said independent network news analyst Andrew Tyndall, who added that he found it "hard to watch." He said he found the tone of some of the reports disturbing: "They appear to have a rooting interest in prices going up. It's normally not a good sign of journalism when you're rooting for an outcome."

FBN, the "hard to watch" channel of Stepford anchors, preening gasbags, and "disturbing" journalism. WATCH IT!

h/t Crooks&Liars

Watch the video

“The Sky Isn’t Falling — It’s the Ground That is Going Up”: FOX Business Launches

2008-07-09T17:50:43Z

So the FOX Business Network (FBN) launched yesterday. I haven’t watched it yet, but judging from the review of FBN’s first day, it looks like it’s delivering exactly what I thought it would:

ON Fox Business Network, the sky isn’t falling — it’s the ground that is going up.

The mood on Rupert Murdoch’s latest television venture was so giggly and upbeat that it belied its own crawl, showing sinking stock prices. -snip-

FBN provides economic news for people who don’t follow the economy very closely and hate to hear bad news. Sunny, informal and downright perky, Fox Business Network comes off as a blend of CNBC and a fifth hour of the “Today” show — with the underlying political drumbeat of Fox News. (Global warming is natural and so are tax cuts.) -snip-

Anchors described record oil prices with a lilt, they delighted in the fall of the dollar as a boon to American exports. -snip-

“You want to basically have fun,” [Bill] O’Reilly told the anchor Cheryl Casone. “Its so intense, the whole business world. The more fun you can have with it, I think the more people will watch.”

After all, who wants to learn about sound investing if it isn’t “fun” and is full of buzzkilling “bad” news? After all, isn’t your IRA and 401k just like a businessy version of fantasy football, except that it has your retirement and your hopes and dreams for the future riding on it? Personal finance is just a hobby, like gardening — except in this case, if your economic roses get root rot, you get to live the last few decades of your life in poverty as a burden to your family.

Republican Candidates Clueless on the Economy

2008-07-09T17:49:13Z

How can republicans fix the US economy if (A) they don’t acknowledge it needs fixing and (B) their solution to everything is cutting taxes (disproportionately for the wealthy) that help pay for services regular people need to help them join the middle class? Steven Pearlstein’s WaPo article about the last republican debate nails it:

To hear it from the Republican presidential hopefuls, the only way for the party to win back the trust of voters on economic issues is to start telling the truth.
Well, fellas, what are you waiting for?
Instead, for two hours yesterday, the nine white men who would be president were each peddling the Big Lie that the only way to ensure economic growth is by cutting all the taxes ever created -- and when you're finished with that, cutting them some more.
Two hours, nine candidates, each one vowing to slash federal spending, but only one (Mitt Romney) able to mention a program whose funding he would cut (some advanced technology program).
Two hours, nine candidates and not one with anything to offer to millions of Americans now facing foreclosure on their houses in what is shaping up as the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. –snip-

Americans Not Buying Bush (or FOX) Spin on the Economy

2008-07-09T17:49:29Z

Last Friday, Bush was touting the creation of 110,000 new jobs in September as proof that “this economy is a vibrant and strong economy.” Kind of like how we're winning in Iraq and seeing lots of "progress". But as with Iraq, stem cells, healthcare, and pretty much everything else you can think of, Bush is out of touch with regular people. From a new AP-Ipsos poll:

Given an open-ended opportunity to name the major problem facing the U.S., 15 percent volunteered the economy. That was six percentage points more than named it when the AP-Ipsos poll last asked the question in July.
"They talk about a big surge in Iraq; well, there hasn't been a big surge over here," said Sadruddin El-Amin, 55, a truck driver in Hanahan, S.C., who named the economy as the top problem. "The job market isn't getting any better, not for the working class."
Twenty-two percent of those with a high school education or less named the economy as the country's worst problem, compared to eight percent with college degrees. In addition, 20 percent of minorities cited the economy as the top issue, compared to nine percent who did so in July.

This disconnect makes sense since Bush has probably never talked to a working class person or minority who wasn’t pre-screened by his handlers, and he probably doesn’t hang around with many people who aren't rich or whose daddies couldn’t legacy or donate their kids into college.

NO Business is FOX Business

2008-07-09T13:46:51Z

Want your business news infected with republican propaganda and a curious lack of actual business information? Then FOX’s new business channel may be the one for you.

FOX Business will most likely be just like FOX — an arm of the republican propaganda machine. Like FOX, it will be designed to demonize democrats and enrich the top 1%, not help regular people. Like FOX, it will hide any truth that does not fit the republican agenda, no matter how vital that truth may be to the way you live your life and care for your family. Like FOX, it will try to distract and titillate you with tabloid news when it should be informing you so you can make sound decisions — all while pulling the rug out from under you.

FOX ATTACKS! Business

2008-07-25T20:08:28Z

The laughter could have rocked a city block when we at BNF heard that FOX was launching a business channel called FBN, an anagram of BNF!

Since we are among the precious few who have watched FOX business shows, from Neil Cavuto to the "Cost of Freedom," we know what a joke the so-called business coverage is. Melanie at the News Hounds has documented the coverage for years. Paris Hilton, strippers, sex diaries -- all critical business functions.

Last week, they put a teaser video on their website. It was time to get to business and mock it with our own improved version.