Monday’s WSJ May Break Fox Biz Channel News; Meanwhile, A Ratings Snapshot…

The Wall Street Journal will be breaking some news about the long-speculated Fox Business Channel on Monday, TVNewser hears.

Julia Angwin has the byline. She approached CNBC for comment “on why Fox’s Saturday block of business shows have better Nielsen ratings that our Business Day programming and our reaction to an advertiser comment that advertisers would welcome the competition because it might get us to lower our CPM’s,” a CNBC memo said on Friday.

I’m surprised it isn’t more widely noted that FNC’s Business Block pummels CNBC on a regular basis. Neil Cavuto, whose ‘World’ is the #1 business show on cable, has called the two hours “the biggest, best, most watched business Block on Earth.”

Here are the numbers: In May, CNBC averaged 135,000 viewers. Its highest-rated show was NBC’s 8pm repeat of The Contender, with 230,000 viewers. (The Apprentice was #2.) Its most popular business day show was Closing Bell, with 221,000 viewers. Street Signs averaged 208,000, Power Lunch averaged 190,000, and the numbers decline from there.

Compare those 0.1’s and 0.2’s to Saturday morning on Fox News. Let’s use the most current numbers: Saturday, June 11. At 10am, Bulls & Bears averaged 931,000. At 10:30am, Cavuto on Business delivered 841,000. At 11am, Forbes on Fox had 877,000. At 11:30am, Cashin’ In earned 785,000.

To be fair, FNC’s business block loses viewers from its lead-in, Fox & Friends Saturday (which averaged 1,168,000 viewers from 9 to 10am). But even at its lowest point last weekend, Fox’s business programs were quadrupling CNBC’s usual ratings.

CNBC’s response is clear: Quality over quantity. This is the statement it provided the WSJ with: “CNBC’s highly desirable audience of business leaders, executives and affluent individual investors cannot in any way be measured by Nielsen’s in-home only system. Our proprietary research shows that our viewers have a median household net worth of over $1.3 million and advertisers know they can only reach this elusive and exclusive audience on our air.”

> Update: 12:40pm: “Remember, Nielsen does not measure out-of-home viewing. Where do most people watch CNBC? Yeah…out of home. Where do most people watch TV on a Saturday? In home. Just food for thought.”