Description
Fox Business (officially known as Fox Business Network) is an American pay television business news channel that is owned by the Fox News Media division of Fox Corporation. The network discusses business and financial news. Day-to-day operations are run by Kevin Magee, executive vice president of Fox News; Neil Cavuto manages content and business news coverage. As of February 2015, Fox Business Network is available to approximately 74,224,000 pay television households (63.8% of households with television) in the United States.
History
News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch confirmed the launch at his keynote address at the 2007 McGraw-Hill Media Summit on February 8, 2007. Murdoch had publicly stated that if News Corporation's purchase of The Wall Street Journal went through and if it were legally possible, he would have rechristened the channel with a name that has "Journal" in it. However, on July 11, 2007, News Corporation announced that the new channel would be called Fox Business Network (FBN), a name chosen over Fox Business Channel due to the pre-existing (though seldom used) legal abbreviation of "FBC" for the co-owned broadcast network Fox Broadcasting Company.
The channel launched on October 15, 2007. The network is placed on channel 43 in the New York City market in the basic-tier pay-TV package, which is home to the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges. It is paired with sister network Fox News Channel, which moved to channel 44 (CNBC is carried on channel 15 on Time Warner Cable's New York City area systems). FBN received carriage on Cablevision channel 106, only available via subscription to its IO Digital Cable package. According to an article in Multichannel News, NBC Universal paid up to "several million dollars" in order to ensure that CNBC and Fox Business would be separated on the dial, and in order to retain CNBC's "premium" channel slot. At the time FBN was carried on Time Warner Cable only on its analog service in New York City (most systems have since switched to digital-only); in other markets, the channel's carriage was limited to premium digital cable packages at extra cost. Verizon's FiOS TV also carries the network on its premier lineup (SD channel 117 and HD channel 617). Dish Network began carrying FBN on channel 206 on February 2, 2009. FBN also received carriage on DirecTV channel 359. As its prominence grew, some providers indeed moved the channel to their basic package, and some have paired Bloomberg Television, CNBC and FBN next to each other as part of 'genre' channel maps.
On May 12, 2008, Fox Business Network revamped its daytime lineup, which included the debut of two new programs, Countdown to the Closing Bell and Fox Business Bulls & Bears. On April 20, 2009, Money for Breakfast, The Opening Bell on Fox Business (both hosted by Alexis Glick), The Noon Show with Tom Sullivan and Cheryl Casone, Countdown to the Closing Bell, Fox Business Bulls & Bears, and Cavuto all moved to the network's new Studio G set. All six of those shows shared the same set in Studio G, which was unveiled on Money for Breakfast the same day.
On September 17, 2012, FBN switched to a letterboxed format on its standard definition feed; simultaneously, all programs began being shown on its HD feed in a full 16:9 picture format, resulting in the removal of the right-side content wing. The network also debuted new graphics on the same day.
On February 24, 2014, Opening Bell with Maria Bartiromo debuted on FBN in the 9 a.m. ET timeslot, replacing the final 20 minutes of Imus in the Morning (which itself was truncated from 200 minutes to 180 minutes) and moved Varney & Company (which also expanded to the full 2 hours) down to the 11 a.m. ET time slot.
On May 29, 2015, Imus in the Morning ended after a 5-1/2 year run, as Don Imus retired from television, thus resulting in major changes to FBN's daytime programming lineup on June 1, 2015. Best of Imus in the Morning, which aired from 5-6 a.m. ET, was replaced with a new early-morning business program, FBN AM. Maria Bartiromo, whose Opening Bell program was also cancelled on May 29, debuted her own new morning program, Mornings with Maria, in the time slot previously occupied by the aforementioned Imus in the Morning (6-9 a.m. ET). Varney & Company was moved up to the 9:00 a.m. ET time slot and also, was expanded to 3 hours from 9:00 a.m. to noon ET. FBN AM and Mornings with Maria were among the four new programs that debuted on June 1, with Cavuto: Coast to Coast and Intelligence Report with Trish Regan being the others.
On November 10, 2015, Fox Business Network, along with The Wall Street Journal hosted its first Republican presidential primary debate, setting a ratings record for the network with 13.5 million viewers. The debate also delivered 1.4 million concurrent streams, making it the most livestreaming primary debate in history and beating out the 2015 Super Bowl by 100,000 streams. Fox Business Network hosted its second Republican primary debate on January 14, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina with Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo serving as moderators. Both of these primetime debates also included earlier debates featuring presidential candidates who were not ranked as highly in the national polls as well as those based in Iowa or New Hampshire.
On December 14, 2017, 21st Century Fox announced it would sell a majority of its assets to The Walt Disney Company in a transaction valued at over $52 billion. Fox Business Network was not included in the deal and was spun off to the significantly downsized Fox Corporation, along with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News Channel and Fox Sports 1 and 2. The deal was approved by Disney and Fox shareholders on July 27, 2018 and was completed on March 19, 2019.
On September 29, 2019, Fox Business Network unveiled a new slogan, "Investing in You", a new on-air graphics scheme based on one recently adopted by Fox News Channel, and updated digital platforms. The channel also announced the new Friday-night program Barron's Roundtable.
