Biz network ratings revealed as FBN prepares for daily Nielsen measurement

By Chris Ariens 

As we’ve been reporting, on Monday Fox Business Network will become a full service client of Nielsen, which means their ratings data will be made available on a daily basis. TVNewser got an early look at Nielsen data for the first quarter of 2011.

During market hours (9:30 – 4pmET) here is the share of the CNBC/FBN audience in total viewers and in the ad-friendly A25-54 demo for both networks:

  • CNBC 83% (Total Viewers)  / 87% (A25-54 viewers)
  • FBN 17% (Total Viewers) / 13% (A25-54 viewers)

During primetime (8-11pmET) FBN ticks up a bit:

Advertisement
  • CNBC 80% (Total Viewers) / 86% (A25-54 viewers)
  • FBN 20% (Total Viewers) / 14% (A25-54 viewers)

More telling, during market hours, FBN is growing, while CNBC is down. Compared to Q1 2010 FBN is up +14% in A25-54 viewers and up +44% in Total Viewers, while CNBC, which has about 5 times as many viewers, is down -21% in younger viewers and down -13% in total viewers.

CNBC has an 18-year, 41 million home (CNBC is in 98.4 million homes, FBN is in 57.3 million) advantage over FBN. And other than in Manhattan, FBN is an all digital channel.

FBN continues to hire new hosts and is seeing ratings successes here and there. And as the network begins a new era next week as a publicly rated channel, the business news battle will be officially on.

(Source: Nielsen Marketbreaks data through 3/22/11)

Advertisement