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Secret's up as Fox tunes in biz TV

News Corp. has been quiet about Fox Business Network, which takes on CNBC on Monday.

By Eric Deggans, Times TV/Media Critic
Published October 14, 2007

News anchor Neil Cavuto of Fox Network's new business cable channel which debuts Monday.
	[Fox News]

After talking for months about the new Fox Business Network without divulging details about its programs, anchor Neil Cavuto has his patter down cold.

Ask about the new show he's developing for Fox's business-oriented cable channel and he jokes about tackling "a variety show. It'll be a Benny Hill thing."

Note that all the women featured on the early version of the channel's Web site seem to be model-pretty on-air talent, and he'll feign surprise.

Observe that an early version of the channel's Web site reveals just one person of color among more than a dozen personalities, and he gets a little more serious.

"Keep in mind you haven't seen everything," said Cavuto, who is Fox's senior vice president of business news. "Give us a chance."

Fox has kept an amazing lid on news about the shows on FBN, which debuts at 5 a.m. Monday. Cavuto's rationale: He doesn't want rival CNBC to poach his ideas.

"I could probably say I'm hosting a show from the House of Pancakes ... (and) you'd see a show from the house of pancakes on another network," he said, complaining about a recent CNBC program that seemed to mimic the only Fox Business show revealed to the public, a talk show set in a bar. "I tend to be very cautious."

Cavuto and FBN executives have downplayed expectations, noting they have had less than a year and a relatively paltry $100-million to hire staff, open bureaus and build a worldwide network.

"This has sort of been like the financial version of Waiting for Godot," he said. "Once we get through it, we'll hopefully get better."

Fox airs six of cable TV's highest-rated business shows, said Cavuto, 49, who anchors two of them. He admitted they face a well-entrenched rival: FBN initially will reach 30-million households - 30 percent of CNBC's total and fewer than lower-profile Bloomberg TV.

BusinessWeek reports that CNBC earns $335.3-million in profits, including advertising and subscriber fees paid by cable companies. CNBC president Mark Hoffman wouldn't confirm those figures, but said the channel earned its biggest net profit in 2006 and may do better in 2007.

"We're focused on ... an affluent, highly educated public," Hoffman said. "Turn back the clock a couple of years, Dennis Miller and Conan O'Brien were on in our prime time. ... Now we've got programs like (analyst Jim Cramer's) Mad Money, Fast Money and a documentary unit. I think we're closing in on being all business all the time."

To compete, FBN has lined up faces such as former Fox News anchor David Asman, radio personality Dave Ramsey and even former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. And they know the competition: Cavuto worked at CNBC when it started 18 years ago, and Fox News president Roger Ailes was CNBC's president in the mid '90s.

Owner Rupert Murdoch, who just bought the Wall Street Journal's parent company, Dow Jones, for $5-billion, is expected to provide patience and money- just as he and Ailes took on CNN to build Fox News Channel.

"This area has tended to be lucrative in theory, but tougher in practice," said Mark Vamos, a professor of business journalism at Southern Methodist University, noting past failures such as CNNfn and Financial News Network. "The theory is that business channel viewers are affluent and desirable to advertisers. The practice is that those audiences tend to be quite small."

Indeed, CNBC averaged 87,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 in August, though the audience's median income is about $184,000, the New York Times reported. That's a departure from CNBC's heyday in 2000, when the stock market was booming and the channel beat CNN to become cable TV's highest-rated news network.

"The CNBC audience is difficult to measure because they're so mobile and upscale," said Bill Bolster, who was president of CNBC during its peak. "(Fox's) biggest challenge is going to be overcoming CNBC's brand, which is global now."

He helped develop an alliance between CNBC and Dow Jones, which lasts until 2012, making it tougher for Fox to align FBN with the Wall Street Journal brand. And though Ailes and Cavuto claim Fox Business will be more populist, Bolster was doubtful.

"We always designed the channel more for Tampa than Manhattan," he said, citing Cramer's in-your-face bluster and the success of beautiful, so-called "money honey" reporters such as Maria Bartiromo and Erin Barnett.

Still, Cavuto remains confident FBN can offer a more plainspoken product.

"Even at the Wall Street Journal, every first reference explains price earnings, explains shorting a stock," he said. "The sophisticated investor knows those terms, but keeps on reading. And for the novice, it's a very useful elaboration. I think you have a shot at appealing to both, and that's probably a nonelitist way of looking at it."

Other questions remain, including Murdoch's promise that Fox Business won't dwell as much on "failures or scandals." And Cavuto's style as a pundit - he once criticized the animated movie Happy Feet for its global warming theme - has given him the reputation of being too conservative-friendly.

The biggest question for Cavuto, a cancer survivor who has multiple sclerosis, is how he will develop FBN while hosting three shows on two different cable channels. But he says he enjoys pushing himself and avoids self pity.

"Back in 1987, three out of 10 people participated in the stock market, and probably two of them didn't know it," Cavuto said. "Today, it's virtually all Americans whether they know it or not. ... People who never used to get into this stuff are now loving it. And we're ready to get them watching us."

[Last modified October 12, 2007, 20:58:20]