The Columbus Dispatch‘s Tom Ferran, in an interview with FNC/FBN chairman & CEO (and eternal Buckeye) Roger Ailes: “We were in 56 million homes when I was there (at CNBC) in the fourth quarter of ’95. They are now in 90 million homes. Their ratings are down, though. I’m not sure if Donny Deutsch is really the answer for them, even though he announces he is. I’m not sure it’s anything more than a very expensive way to meet girls for him.”
The Boston Globe‘s Joanna Weiss also got access to Ailes, who not only propped up FBN, but took a swipe at MSNBC: “The broadcast networks put their opinion in the news and try to pretend that it’s not opinion. And some of the cable networks, such as MSNBC, have their opinion people actually anchor the news. We don’t do that. We have the separation of church and state.”
San Francisco Chronicle‘s Joe Garofoli: “the dial is littered with the carcasses of failed financial networks like FNN and CNNfn. And if it does too much political news, analysts say it could cannibalize its own audience from the Fox News Channel. Still, SNL Kagan predicts that Fox Business will break even by 2010 after sustaining losses of $185 million.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s Tim Grant: “Paul Brahim, EVP of BPU Investment Management said he would be interested in seeing how Fox might put a conservative spin on issues such as the economy, the stock market and sky-high CEO compensation.” But Brahim goes on to tell Grant, “As an adviser, I wish they would all go off the air because they focus so much on what’s happening right now, today, that they send the wrong message to investors.”