Spin Control…
Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici writes about Don Imus and FBN…
If he brought along even a fraction of his current audience, Imus could easily give a huge boost to Fox Business’ numbers. A cable news insider I spoke with believes that FBN could actually overtake CNBC in the morning by signing him. “I don’t think you attract a guy like Imus to shut the channel down,” says the source. “You bring a guy like Imus to set you up for the real business news of the day with a really big audience.”
Indeed, MSNBC’s simulcast of Imus in the Morning performed better in the Nielsens than Morning Joe, its current morning show, which is much celebrated among Beltway insiders. Moreover, notes the insider, while Imus admittedly isn’t a financial-news expert, FBN could supplement his broadcast with regular break-ins from the world of business.
Gee I wonder who this cable news insider works for? Nice spin going there. I particularly like the part about the “real business news of the day”. It’s a clever, albeit too obvious, attempt to reframe the story; to suggest that 6-9am doesn’t matter…that the “real news” happens after the market opens. That is of course bul****t…but I give them chutzpah points for trying to put that one over. If it were true CNBC wouldn’t be spending time covering 6-9 the way it does. Not for the crummy numbers they get out of it.
And MSNBC tried to get Imus to boost their morning news ratings. They tried it for 10 years. Didn’t work. People that tune in for Imus, tune in for Imus. Most tune out when Imus is done. So in the end FBN would have an Imus lead in which likely boosts FBN’s ratings, while gutting their business news brand, only to see those ratings likely drop when 9 am rolls around.
August 12, 2009 at 8:28 pm
It wouldn’t be completely crazy for FBN to try to change the dynamics of morning business coverage. If they can’t beat CNBC at it’s game then change the game.
Still, I can’t imagine how an Imus lead-in would jump-start the programming day.
August 12, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Getting Imus probably gives FBN a quicker chance of getting to 90+ million households, better advertisers coming onboard paying a premium and of course buzz.
Imus is 69 and has some sort of cancer, they’ll probably sign him to a 5 year or less deal. Once he’s onboard, they need to capitalize what I said in the beginning.
Once the deal ends, hopefully FBN will be close to 90+ million households, they’ll have relationships with better premium paying advertisers, viewership will hopefully be way up and the WSJ agreement with CNBC will have already ended.
Then they can go back to all business all day.
August 13, 2009 at 4:35 am
Getting Imus probably gives FBN a quicker chance of getting to 90+ million households, better advertisers coming onboard paying a premium and of course buzz.
How did that subscription “game” work out for RFD?
Once the deal ends, hopefully FBN will be close to 90+ million households
I also thought about this as a “ploy” or a “stop gap” until FBN can get more reach.. and then bring back the full time biz programming.
But, then I considered a couple likely scenarios: 1) Credibility will be shot for bailing out in the first place, 2) FBN’s still on mostly higher tiers.
So, don’t ya think FBN should be working to get their channel part of “standard” packages instead? I wonder how much it costs to do that versus signing Imus to a fat contract?
August 13, 2009 at 6:07 am
I think FBN is a lost cause as a business channel. The whole business/stocks/CEO thing has lost its momentum as a mainstream casual-viewer experience. There’s only room for one Business Network in a niche market, and we have three!
August 13, 2009 at 11:43 am
Maybe their plan is to just do as well as they can until the markets begin moving again in the exciting direction. Even with on-camera business babes aplenty, I can’t stomach watching the reports.