For Fox News and Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto, the conventions are a chance to showcase the 5-year-old business network. Last week during the RNC, FBN topped CNBC head-to-head during convention coverage.
“I always like it when I see it, to be in the number of homes that we are in, and to score that,” Cavuto told me in the Fox News skybox in the Time Warner Cable Arena. “I don’t get ahead of myself, like I don’t obsess over every tick in ratings. Remember when I came here from CNBC for Fox News, there were years when people thought I had entered the witness protection program, so it does take time to register.”
Cavuto also has to juggle duties as an FBN anchor, an FBN executive and an anchor for Fox News, where he hosts the afternoon business program “Your World.”
On his program Wednesday, he lamented that he was having a hard time booking some Democratic guests.
“Just tell me if you hate me, tell me if you have a problem with us. I am a big boy, I can understand, we’ll move on,” Cavuto said on his program.
He told me that while he may not have gotten everyone he has wanted, he has been very happy with how the booking process has progressed since FBN launched, and with the viewer response.
“Last week at the RNC, we had all these big guests, standing in line like planes at LaGuardia. If we were such a waste of time they wouldn’t bother, we are not a waste of time, they do bother,” he says. “I think once they see you are here and you are serious, the audiences respond. The news audience and the business audience.”
Cavuto likened his experience at FBN to to his earlier efforts at CNBC and Fox News.
“I think [FBN] is on a faster trajectory than Fox News was, maybe by shear luck or bad luck, I don’t know.” Cavuto says. “I was there at CNBC from the beginning, I was there at Fox News from the beginning, I am a pioneer of beginnings I guess. The good ones stand the test of time, and I have great respect for CNBC because it has clearly stood the test of time, but its audience sort of peaked out.”