Fox Prepares for the New Business Channel

It has been recently announced by Fox News that is was creating the new Fox Business Channel, which is scheduled for launch later this year. Fox News has already enjoyed the most popular block of business programming with its "Cost of Freedom" shows between 9 to 11 AM on Saturdays (Central Time), now it hopes to provide quality business content 24/7.

To me it makes perfect sense for Fox to move in this arena. Unlike its chief competitor in this genre, CNBC, Fox is making it perfectly clear that it intends to be overtly pro-business. This has been the case on the Fox News channel from the beginning, I would only expect it to continue on in its channel for business.

The signs of the preparation are obvious as the impressive slogans "The Most Powerful Name in News" and "Fair and Balanced" are being seen less, while "Fox Means Business" is seen more frequently. They seem to be getting ready for their big play.

My question, as Fox gets ready for the move, is what businesses are going to get attention? CNBC and Bloomberg are clearly about big business and investing. Not that these are not important, but the vast majority of businesses in this country are actually quite small. I think there is a theory that small businesses simply wing it and the owners are too busy to spend time consuming business news. I disagree and believe that with the rise of content on the web that mirrors TV and the explosion of mobile devices that makes such easily accessible, Fox would do well providing content that appeals specifically to the small business audience. In addition to potentially winning the war on the editorial front, Fox could also win by providing a genre of business information on cable that no one else is doing. Obviously it is imperative for Fox to lead in the big business and investment areas -- after all big business audiences attract big advertising dollars -- but it also makes sense to go where others in TV have demonstrated very little interest, but the huge numbers of potential audience clearly deserves attention.