Presenting to 21st Century Fox investors in Los Angeles this afternoon, Roger Ailes said he knew launching a business network would be a challenge.
“Rupert [Murdoch] and I talked about this in the beginning. We always thought it was somewhat difficult,” Ailes told Neil Cavuto, who is Fox Business Network’s senior vice president and managing editor. “We’re actually at about the same place Fox News was five years in. It’s tougher because, of course, there’s not a lot of extra income around for a lot of people … you’ve got to adjust programming.”
Ailes said he was “very careful” about the timing of the FBN launch, noting the network is profitable.
“The bottom line is that Fox Business Channel made money two years ago, it made money last year, and it will make more money next year,” he said. “And our ratings, while they are slow — we have 20 million fewer subscribers [than CNBC] — our ratings are going up and CNBC’s are going down. So I think we’re in pretty good shape.”