Advertising Age writes about Fox Business Network, including a look at how it is performing during the crucial stock market hours. Ad Age writes that from 9:30 AM to 4 PM, FBN averaged around 64,000 total viewers. While this is a significant improvement over the estimated 37,000 that tuned in a year earlier, it is still far behind CNBC, which averages 273,000 people.
The media outlet’s progress — or lack thereof — places a spotlight on the question of how long a startup has to succeed. Launching a magazine or cable network once was viewed as a five-year process. Deteriorating business conditions have left media conglomerates with less patience. Yet they are all still working to turn even their tiniest operations into bigger forces. Under Comcast, for example, cable outlet Versus was never the best-known sports network, but now the company hopes to leverage it into something more commanding by using NBC’s sports broadcasts.
But Ad Age also notes that advertisers are excited for the possibility of a real competitor to CNBC, as it gives them more opportunities to reach high-level corporate executives:
“There are only so many places you can go to hit that C-level suite,” said Guy Rancourt, VP-associate media director at Interpublic Group’s Hill Holliday, where client John Hancock Financial Services is a buyer of ad time on Fox Business, CNBC and Bloomberg. Fox Business is “making strides in the right direction,” he said, though he noted it will not see instantaneous growth. “It’s not like they’re going to come out of the cage and dominate or get to 100 million homes that quickly. It’s hard to do these days.”