Tag Archives: Fox Business Network
The business media needs to improve its Twitter use
by Chris Roush
The business media use Twitter as a promotional tool and are not building an online community, according to research presented Friday by two Virginia Commonwealth University professors.
Vivian Medina-Messner and Marcus Messner found that the top business media outlets need to use Twitter as an online social network, not just another publication platform. “More attention needs to be paid to community building — use of hashtags, handles, retweets,” the wrote.
Their research was presented Friday at the 11th annual “Convergence and Society” conference at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. The conference, which is organized by the USC College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, this year is focused on business journalism.
The professors studied tweets, retweets, headline tweets, Twitter handle use, hashtag and link use by media and frequency of retweets by audience for nine major business media outlets between July and September. The business media outlets were the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times business section, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, Fortune, Businessweek and The Economist.
Of those media Twitter accounts, The Economist has the most followers with more than 2.3 million, while Fox Business has the least with 105,000. However, Bloomberg News uses Twitter the most, while Fox Business uses it the least.
However, nearly 45 percent of all business media tweets are simply headlines, and 99.8 percent simply link to internal links. Only one out of every six business media tweet uses a hashtag, and only one out of every eight is a retweet.
Fortune magazine retweets (one-third of all of its tweets during the study time) the most, while The Economist does no retweeting. Fox Business Network uses hashtags the most, with more than half of its tweets having hashtags. It also tweets headlines the least of all of the business media.
On average, readers of The Economist Twitter feed retweet the most, or about 126 retweets per tweet, while followers of The Wall Street Journal Twitter feed retweet the least, with an average of 3.6 retweets per tweet.
Medina-Messner and Messner suggest that in-depth interviews with social media editors and reporters at business media could help better understand why some business news organizations use Twitter more than others.
Cavuto: A feisty interviewer
by Chris Roush
Lauren Ashburn of The Daily Beast examines Fox Business Network‘s Neil Cavuto and his recent interview with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Ashburn wrote, “The argument over taxes and entitlement programs is tailor-made for Cavuto, whose wheelhouse is financial news. Unlike more bombastic Fox hosts such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, his Your World with Neil Cavuto is part of the channel’s daytime news programming. (He also hosts another program on Fox Business Network.) Your World routinely trounces the cable competition, averaging 1.6 million viewers so far this month.
“Cavuto is a survivor in more ways than one. He joined CNBC on the first day of its launch, in 1989, and Roger Ailes lured him to the newly created Fox News for its 1996 debut. Cavuto also has beaten cancer and sometimes struggles with his multiple sclerosis, which has occasionally led to hospitalizations but doesn’t stop him from maintaining a packed schedule.
“Cavuto can be a feisty interviewer and regularly sits down with CEOs, including Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox’s parent company. Tuesday’s interview was his fourth with Romney during this campaign, and Cavuto spoke to Ann Romney last week (asking her, ‘as a fellow MSer,’ whether she should talk more about her illness). Several of the other exclusive guests touted on his website are prominent Republicans, such as Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, and Dan Quayle.
“What about the White House? ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t say we’ve had trouble getting the president,’ says Cavuto. ‘Never mind that we’ve been very critical of House Republicans in particular…I’m a bipartisan ranter against government waste.’ Cavuto notes that he chided House Speaker John Boehner for promising to get spending under control and resorting to short-term budget fixes instead. Cavuto also says he criticized the Bush administration for keeping much of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars off budget.”
Read more here.
Fox Business Network gets redesign
by Chris Roush
Carl Marcucci of RBR-TRVBR writes about the graphics overhaul that has occurred at Fox Business Network.
Marcucci writes, “FBN will now, for the first time ever, have a specific vehicle in place to utilize social media. The ticker will now include a dedicated space for any text information, meaning headlines, tweets, Facebook comments and more. Previously, if they wanted to incorporate Twitter, it would have to be in the lower third, meaning it could only stay on air for a short time, and then would have to disappear once the camera switches to a guest that needs to be identified (since this is the space where chyrons–graphics that occupy the lower area of the screen–appear).
“Ray Lambiase, Senior VP of Graphics at FBN, tells RBR-TVBR: ‘By dedicating an area of our new data ticker exclusively to text headlines, we will have the opportunity to – at any time and as often and for as long as we like – display social media comments, without ever interrupting the flow of financial data that our business viewers expect to see.’
“Given the key role that social media will play in the 2012 election, the redesign comes at a perfect time. As FBN has been committed to covering the election from a business perspective, when the network hosts its debate coverage, it can for the first time display a continuous social media feed of tweets featuring comments about that night’s event. So, be on the lookout for FBN’s first on-air social media incorporation to begin around 10/3.”
Read more here.
Figuring out big stories and how you will attack them
by Chris Roush
Christopher Pape of Resident magazine interviewed Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis about her job.
Here is an excerpt:
R: Tell me about your experience with Fox Business.
MF: I love Fox, it incorporates many more viewers because it covers the intersection between Wall Street, Main Street and Washington. Everything that happens in government impacts your finance and your job and so on. It is much broader; it is more about how everything that happens in economy affects the individual and how it impacts job market.
R: Do you do write for the show?
MF: Most of the show isn’t written. We figure out big stories and work out how we will attack them. We write the facts of the situation that we are discussing but then it becomes a dialogue between guest experts and ourselves. I will ask my team to search for facts and write it all up, but that just arms us for our discussion.
R: Do you get any interaction from the public?
MF: Yes, Twitter blows up a lot and they tell us their thoughts. It’s a great indicator.
Read more here.
Cavuto: CNBC has peaked, and Fox Biz is on fast trajectory
by Chris Roush
Alex Weprin of TVNewser interviewed Fox Business Network anchor Neil Cavuto about how it has been covering the Democratic National Convention and its competition with CNBC.
Weprin writes, “He told me that while he may not have gotten everyone he has wanted, he has been very happy with how the booking process has progressed since FBN launched, and with the viewer response.
“‘Last week at the RNC, we had all these big guests, standing in line like planes at LaGuardia. If we were such a waste of time they wouldn’t bother, we are not a waste of time, they do bother,’ he says. ‘I think once they see you are here and you are serious, the audiences respond. The news audience and the business audience.’
“Cavuto likened his experience at FBN to to his earlier efforts at CNBC and Fox News.
“‘I think [FBN] is on a faster trajectory than Fox News was, maybe by shear luck or bad luck, I don’t know,’ Cavuto says. ‘I was there at CNBC from the beginning, I was there at Fox News from the beginning, I am a pioneer of beginnings I guess. The good ones stand the test of time, and I have great respect for CNBC because it has clearly stood the test of time, but its audience sort of peaked out.’”
Read more here.
Fox Biz Network succeeding by outfoxing CNBC
by Chris Roush
Jeff Reeves, the editor at InvestorPlace.com, writes that Fox Business Network is succeeding by providing an alternative to CNBC.
Reeves writes, “Consider that Neil Cavuto has been on the ball for months when it comes to politics — most glaringly covering primary races while competitors at CNBC were airing infomercials. The crusty newshound in me wants to give a fellow journalist props for that … but the reality is that Fox isn’t just doing this out of altruism. It knows that this is its chance to make a splash with FBN and differentiate it from CNBC.
“‘Yeah, yeah,’ you say. ‘Bottom line is it’s election coverage on a financial news channel. People are watching that on the main Fox News channel or CNN anyway, so stop reading into it.’
“That’s actually the whole point of FBN, in my opinion. It’s about giving a specific viewer a place to get a specific flavor of information.
“Critics say that CNBC is ‘real’ markets coverage and doesn’t do as much softball stuff as Fox — but what they fail to understand is that Fox seems to be courting a more Main Street audience by design. It’s not a lack of skill that makes them pick a seemingly simple issue over a complex one, but what I see as a targeted strategy.
“In short, Fox Business isn’t trying to out-CNBC CNBC. It’s trying to out-Fox CNBC.”
Read more here.
Fox Business beats CNBC during Republican convention
by Chris Roush
Alex Weprin of TVNewser.com reports that Fox Business Network has more viewers on Tuesday than rival CNBC during its airing of the Republican National Convention.
Weprin reports, “CNBC went with limited coverage, only going live from 10-11PM with Larry Kudlow and John Harwood anchoring. Fox Business was a bit more intensive, going live from 8-11:15 with Neil Cavuto anchoring. Bloomberg TV also had live coverage from 9-11, but is not rated by Nielsen.
“Bear in mind that both of these networks were competing against their politics-centric corporate siblings, so the ratings expectations were not set too high.
“From 10-11PM – the only hour FBN and CNBC were head to head – FBN averaged 388,000 viewers, including 161,000 adults 25-54. CNBC averaged 163,000 viewers, including 76,000 A25-54.
“From 8-9, FBN averaged 246,000 total viewers, and 93,000 A25-54. From 9-10, it drew 307,000 total viewers and 111,000 A25-54.”
Read more here.
Switching to Fox Business from CNBC
by Chris Roush
Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis talks with Chris Ariens of Mediabistro.com about leaving CNBC to join its rival.
Fox Business news release touting ratings win appears on CNBC’s website
by Chris Roush
A Fox Business Network news release noting that “Lou Dobbs Tonight” beat CNBC‘s “The Kudlow Report” was issued on Monday — and wound up verbatim on the CNBC 
website.
The release, which can be found here, states:
FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Lou Dobbs Tonight beat CNBC’s The Kudlow Report in the coveted advertising demo of persons aged 25-54 for the month of July, according to Nielsen Media Research. The victory marks the first monthly win for the 7 PM/ET program, anchored by Lou Dobbs, since launching in March 2011.
For the month of July, Dobbs achieved a 10 percent advantage over CNBC with 43,000 viewers in the demo to Larry Kudlow’s 39,000.
In total viewers, it was a close race with Dobbs earning 148,000, just shy of Kudlow’s 158,000. FBN is available in roughly half as many homes as CNBC and this is the first time a program has won the month in the advertiser friendly demo since launching in 2007.
Dobbs of Fox Business continues to beat CNBC’s Kudlow
by Chris Roush
Vikas Shukla of ValueWalk.com reports that the Lou Dobbs show on Fox Business Network continues to draw more viewers than the competing show hosted by Larry Kudlow on CNBC during the same time slot.
Shukla writes, “Right from the beginning of July, CNBC has been losing share to Lou Dobbs Tonight, which surprised everyone by emerging numero uno in the first week of July, despite Lou Dobbs being off the show.
“For the week July 16 through July 20, Dobbs beat Kudlow by 32% in the demo (Age group 25-54) where Dobbs had 50,000 viewers against 38,000 of Kudlow. Though Kudlow did have a 5000 lead in total viewers this week, the total viewership for Dobbs in July so far is higher than Kudlow, because FBN had already beaten Kudlow with a fair margin in the first two weeks of July.
“The 7 pm show is crucial for TV channels, because it is the connecting link between business programs and primetime shows. The data clearly indicates that 23-year old CNBC is losing market share, albeit slowly, to Fox Business Network.”
Read more here.
