Watching Fox Business
October 23, 2007I’m hearing a little about the Fox Business Channel, but not very much. A large part of that is because of the traditional reluctance of the broadcast media to comment on anything that occurs on another network/channel, while feverishly promoting its own entries. (Why is it “news” on the KABC 11PM news what happens on Dancing with the Stars? One guess which network it’s on.)
The mainstream media criticism of Fox Business is predictable.
“At a time when the bull market seems to be breaking down, when investment banks are beginning to cope with the aftermath of a credit orgy, at a time in which income inequality has surged to levels not seen since the 1920s, and when even rich people are abandoning the Republican Party—you have to wonder whether this is the most auspicious time to launch a new TV network that combines GOP talking points and simplistic market updates.”
Or this:
Fox News’s bread and butter is the culture war, and it’s forever inventing new campaigns to boil viewers’ blood in the dead space between celebrity scandals. But how do you translate that to business? Where’s the us-versus-them? The obvious answer would be to embrace O’Reilly-style ostentatious populism: the forgotten little guy against the sinister corporate interests.
But that’s not the biggest problem. The true test of a business channel is whether you can watch it for 20 minutes straight, which I reluctantly admit I can do with CNBC. (And not because of my secret love for the ‘money honeys’.)
Can Fox Business meet that test? I don’t know–because when I tuned it in, Time Warner’s (yes, a competitor) channel 223 said “Fox Business is not available; call your cable operator.”