In a move pulled from their old playbook, Fox (NWS) has already started to market their new business channel as "more business-friendly" than rival CNBC (GE), similar to their strategy when starting the Fox News Channel about 10 years ago.
Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive for Fox News, said to the New York Times (NYT) that, "We don't get up every morning thinking business is bad."
The response by Jeff Zucker, newly appointed chairman and CEO of NBC Universal and parent company of CNBC was: "When you don't have a product, it's easy to throw darts. We're not concerned at all."
Rick Kaplan, the CNN chief from 1996 to 2000, said that he thought the same thing back when the Fox News Network started to air, and didn't think people would respond to the "fair and balanced" slogan that resonated with so many Americans. "I thought that people were not going to buy the argument," Kaplan said.
Roger Ailes
Responding to Roger Ailes' comment to the New York Times (NYT) about CNBC being unfriendly to business, Kaplan added that while people may think that the public won't be swayed by that, his experience has taught him that "You don't ever count Roger out, ever."
Kaplan added though, that one of the reasons it worked with the Fox News Network, was because there was an element of truth in it that the mainstream news organizations weren't representing the other side of things like they could have.
I think this could definitely find another audience as well, as much of the news about business and business leaders focuses strongly on the negative rather than the lot of the benefit business brings to the world. I write about this on another blog and find that it's difficult search out business without the fixation on scandels and negative alleged impact that businesses have upon people.
This could very well work like it did at the start of Fox News. It'll be fun to see how Fox tries to poke holes in the CNBC business channel coverage.
Comment Preview