Is there room for another all-business news channel…this time from Fox? The Wall Street Journal reports today that plans are proceeding to debut this CNNfn replacement during the first half of 2006. Business news TV programming flourished during the dot-com bubble, but its true cable origins were with pioneers ESPN “Business Times” and the Financial News Network in the eighties.
Even with the dot-com bubble bursting and CNNfn shuttering, TV business news coverage thrives. This is in spite of CNN and FNC’s monied personalities Lou Dobbs and Neil Cavuto, respectively, forsaking their business-reporting roots for hard news. (Who could blame them given all the attention their cable news counterparts received during the last presidential election?)
Broadcast TV has taken the lead with the long-running “Nightly Business Report” on PBS, and the nationally syndicated programs Business Week TV and Wall Street Journal Report. Now, I ask, why is business news reporting missing from virtually every local broadcast affiliate? Maybe a daily “Business Celebrity Justice”-type segment would make it viable? There are certainly a plethora of stories in this genre from which to choose.