Market woes spell rating gains for FBN and CNBC

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The stock market’s losses have meant ratings gains for Fox Business Network and CNBC.

Both channels have seen their typically tiny audiences balloon into, well, small audiences. Still, the gains are impressive and give both networks a chance to expand beyond their core viewership.

‘Fox Business has made great strides,’ News Corp. President Chase Carey said of the cable channel’s recent ratings while speaking on the media giant’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call with analysts and media Wednesday.

Launched almost four years ago, Fox Business has posted huge -- in many cases record -- percentage increases in ratings over the last week. The gains have been bigger than those experienced by CNBC, which is not surprising given that Fox Business is in only 58 million homes while CNBC is in north of 90 million homes.

From Thursday through Tuesday, the daytime audience (9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) for Fox Business grew 256% to 128,000 viewers, from 36,000 viewers for the same period last year. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m, Fox’s audience was up 162% to 131,000 viewers from 50,000 a year earlier.

CNBC saw its daytime audience grow 68% to 438,000 viewers from 260,000 over the same period. In late afternoon and early evening, the gain was almost 111% to 340,000 viewers from 161,000.

Despite the distribution advantage for CNBC, Lou Dobbs’ show on Fox Business has performed exceptionally well.

As for the general news channels, Fox News continues to dominate in both daytime and prime time through the latest financial crisis.

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-- Joe Flint