Fox Business
Fox Business (officially known as Fox Business Network, or FBN) is an American conservative business news channel and website publication owned by the Fox News Media division of Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Launched on October 15, 2007, the network features trading day coverage and a nightly lineup of opinion-based talk shows.
Country
United States
Nationwide
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York City, U.S.
English
720p HDTV
(downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed)
October 15, 2007
Fox News Go and FoxNow app (Pay-TV subscribers only)
Day-to-day operations are run by Kevin Magee, executive vice president of Fox News; Neil Cavuto is the vice president and managing editor for the network and business news operation overall.
As of February 2015, Fox Business Network is available to approximately 74,224,000 pay television households (63.8% of households with television) in the United States.[1]
Ratings[edit]
On January 4, 2008, The New York Times and several other media outlets reported that FBN had registered an average of 6,300 viewers, far below Nielsen's 35,000-viewer threshold. The number was so low that neither Nielsen nor FBN were allowed to confirm the number.[37] The Times and other media outlets noted the network is less than four months old and only in one-third as many households as is CNBC.
In July 2008, Nielsen estimated that FBN averaged 8,000 viewers per daytime hour and 20,000 per prime time hour, compared to 284,000 and 191,000 (respectively) for CNBC. Because FBN's viewership remained low, Nielsen had difficulty estimating viewership, and the estimates are not statistically significant. At the time, FBN was available in approximately 40 million homes to CNBC's over 90 million.[38]
In the fall 2008, FBN was losing to CNBC in the ratings by over 10 to 1.[39][40]
By June 2009, showed FBN with an average of 21,000 viewers between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., still under the Nielsen threshold, and less than 10% of CNBC's 232,000 for the same time span. At this point, FBN was available in about 49 million U.S. homes.[41]
Reports of ratings from the first episode of Imus in the Morning reported an average of 177,000 viewers (and a peak of 202,000 in the 7:00 a.m. hour) in the time slot, mostly over the age of 65; this was a more than tenfold increase compared to the network's previous morning show, Money for Breakfast. The program even beat CNBC's Squawk Box in the time slot.[42]
In 2012, Lou Dobbs Tonight was challenging CNBC's Larry Kudlow, earning 141,000 total viewers on Fox Business Network.[43]
The first quarter of 2016 had FBN experience its strongest ratings in its history with day programming up 111 percent in total viewers and 130 percent in the key age 25 to 54 demographic, compared to a year before.[44]
As of August 2017, Fox Business had surpassed CNBC's ratings for nine consecutive months, and Lou Dobbs Tonight was the most-watched program in business news. CNBC announced in 2015 that it would no longer rely on Nielsen ratings to measure its daytime audience, turning to rival Cogent Reports instead.[45]
Controversies[edit]
COVID-19 pandemic[edit]
On March 27, 2020, Trish Regan departed the network, amid criticism of a segment on the March 9 episode of Trish Regan Primetime, where she accused Democrats of exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic solely to blame President Donald Trump for it, and launch another round of impeachment hearings.[46][47]
On December 23, 2020, Mornings with Maria aired an interview with a person who claimed to be Smithfield Foods CEO Dennis Organ, but was actually an animal rights activist from Direct Action Everywhere who warned that the meat packing industry could "effectively [bring] on the next pandemic.” Bartiromo issued a correction at the end of the show, admitting that they had been "punked".[48][49]
Smartmatic election fraud claims[edit]
In November 2020, Fox Business anchors Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs promoted conspiracy theories during their programs, tying the voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic to voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. This included claims that it had ties to Dominion Voting Systems and the country of Venezuela. In December 2020, Smartmatic requested a retraction of the coverage by Fox Business, Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network, stating that it was "false and defamatory".[50] To comply with the request, the two anchors' programs, as well as that of Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro, all aired a pre-recorded interview with Edward Perez, an election technology expert at the Open Source Election Technology Institute, which fact-checked various election fraud claims (including those surrounding Smartmatic).[51][52][53]
On February 4, 2021, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News Media for defamation, specifically naming Bartiromo, Dobbs, and Pirro.[54] The next day, Fox Business abruptly canceled Lou Dobbs Tonight.[55]
Availability[edit]
Outside the United States[edit]
On April 20, 2009, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved Fox Business Network for distribution in Canada;[56] it is currently available through Rogers Cable's 'Ignite TV' service.
As of July 2011, the channel is carried on Sky Italia (a fellow News Corporation company at the time), its first European carriage deal. Fox Business HD was first broadcast in Israel by cable provider Hot in 2015, and it is also carried by Cellcom TV and Partner TV.
In Australia, Sky News Business Channel (subsequently relaunched as Your Money in October 2018) simulcast Fox Business Network during overnight hours since its launch in January 2008,[57] until the channel was closed down in May 2019. The channel was operated by Australian News Channel Pty Ltd, which was partly owned by Sky plc in the United Kingdom (a fellow 21st Century Fox company at the time) until December 2016, when News Corp Australia (a fellow Rupert Murdoch company) acquired the Australian broadcaster in its entirety.
In the United Kingdom, Fox Business is available for streaming on the Fox News International mobile application.
Dispute with Spectrum[edit]
In 2018, Fox Business Network decided to Spectrum, to remove FBN and FNC. Both channels were removed from the Spectrum lineup on May 1, 2018. On May 10, 2018, both Fox Business Network and Fox News returned to Spectrum after a hiatus.
High definition[edit]
The high-definition simulcast of Fox Business Network is broadcast in 720p. Programming shown on this feed was originally produced in high-definition, but was cropped to a 4:3 image and pushed to the left side of the screen, with the extra room used for additional content, such as statistics and charts, and a wider ticker with more room; the information sidebar was named "The Fox HD Wing" (competitor channel CNBC HD used the enhanced HD format until October 13, 2014, when it was discontinued altogether).
The sidebar graphic was dropped as a result of the network's switch to a 16:9 letterboxed format on September 17, 2012, ending the enhanced HD format altogether. The enhanced ticker and headlines, which were previously seen in the old sidebar graphic, were moved to the lower-third of the screen. Both the SD and HD feeds now use the same exact 16:9 letterbox format, just like its other Fox-owned sister networks.