NEW YORK -- Fox News looking to outbiz stalwart CNBC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 25, 2007 -- Within a day of Murdoch's statement on Feb. 8, Fox News business anchor Neil Cavuto told MarketWatch that ''we're going to be a channel for America -- not for old white men with money.''

Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive for Fox News, told The New York Times that he'd often seen things on CNBC where they aren't as friendly to corporations and profits as they should be.

''We don't get up every morning thinking business is bad,'' Ailes said.

Substitute ''America'' for ''business'' in that quote and you'd swear it was 1996 again, and Ailes was needling CNN.

The tactic worked for Fox News Channel. Worked brilliantly. Many people doubted the network was even necessary, yet it charged past the industry pioneer within six years and hasn't been caught since. Now many are questioning whether Fox Business Channel can compete against CNBC.

CNBC will be defined by what it delivers on the air every day, and not by Fox, said Jeff Zucker, chairman and CEO of NBC Universal, CNBC's parent company.

''When you don't have a product, it's easy to throw darts,'' Zucker said. ''We're not concerned at all.''

Rick Kaplan, who ran CNN from 1996 to 2000, wasn't much concerned back then, either. Why worry about snide references to the Clinton News Network or a Fox slogan like ''fair and balanced,'' with the inference that CNN wasn't? Fox's ratings were so negligible it didn't matter.
''I thought that people were not going to buy the argument,'' Kaplan said.

CNN didn't bother responding.

Yet Fox caught on with an audience that believed the slogans. Partly it was because there was a ring of truth, Kaplan said. Not that CNN was partisan, but mainstream news organizations may not have been sensitive enough to other points of view, he said. President Clinton's impeachment troubles galvanized what became Fox's audience, he said.

What should CNN have done?
''I'm not sure,'' he said. ''Maybe fight back harder and not just show disdain for Fox News Channel and the noise that was coming out of Fox and their advertising campaigns.''

CNN counterpunches now, as it did recently when Fox referred to Anderson Cooper as the Paris Hilton of TV news.

CNBC hasn't sat back. Spokesman Kevin Goldman answered the criticism coming from Fox Business Channel: ''It doesn't surprise me that our alleged competition is already starting with its usual lies and propaganda.''

Source: http://www.yahoo.com
POSTED BY DAVID BAUDER

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