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FBN vs. CNBC: Two Much Fun
So no one had any idea what the first day of Fox Business Network would be like.
The only place that had any inkling of what the new business news channel’s lineup of shows would be was that bastion of daily journalism in the financial capital of the world known as Metro. Of course, this is a publication aimed at subway riders. Just the people who will be tuning in to Roger Ailes’ latest creation. And the lineup appeared not in its news pages, but in a four-page ad wrapped around its Monday morning edition.
But Ailes, the maestro of news maneuvering (the man who walked the White House; then earned his news chops at CNBC, before crushing CNN in the ratings with Fox News Channel), had it down pat. The new Fox Business Network would be roundly panned after its first day in, well, business. The stories, he said, were already written, before the channel even launched.
Were it not so. And it wasn’t. The New York Times declared the first day of the latest Rupert Murdoch-driven news launch to be … perky.
How do you like them apples, Roger?
What caught the eyes of Times reporter Alessandra Stanley, Multichannel News editor Mike Reynolds and the Associated Press was FBN’s definition of what it means when Wall Street meets Main Street. It was the Naked Cowboy, who claims to earn about $250,000 a year from strumming in a not-completely-naked-state in Times Square.
What is it? Five blocks from Fox offices at 1211 Avenue of the Americas to Times Square? It must be great to be so close to the epicenter of American small business entrepreneurism. Wall Street meets Main Street five blocks from home. [Even if it appears that his biggest fans are of Asian descent].
The competition was fierce. You had CNBC buying ads on FBN, to lure away viewers. You had yellow – Think of it. Yellow! – being used as a weapon. And Ivanka Trump as a paragon of the modern jewelery industry. There’s that Main Street meets Wall Street thing again. Has she gone public? On this day, for sure.
By the afternoon, you had Fox promoting its 4 p.m. interview with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan at the same time the Money Honey, Maria Bartiromo, was at that moment going ahead and interviewing him on CNBC.
Thank you, Roger and Rupert. Life is so much more fun when there are two players in the game.
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