Day one is almost in the books and, well, not much to jump for joy about. I was really looking forward to this and FOX has left me both disappointed and optimistic at the same time.

Disappointed:
The early morning show was just painful. The anchor (whose name escapes me) had all the charisma of a corpse and was just awkward both on the air and interviewing guests. The whole segment seemed choppy and highly unorganized and had me changing the channels back to CNBC. Having Alexis Glick interview the “Naked Cowboy” in Times Square for half the morning holding his underwear was, well, humiliating to watch. Was Trump busy? Is that the best we could do on day one? If that is the general tone of the early show “Squawk Box” on CNBC has nothing to worry about. With all the action that takes place before the open, the first show of the day is not a one man operation, especially when that man reminds one of Ted Baxter.

The day got better as the shows went on. Both the anchors and the guests are regulars on Fox’s weekend business shows and their familiarity with both each other and being on camera was obvious. The conversation was also very interesting.

Politics: I felt a bit too much was focused here. FOX needs to let the business channel focus on business and not get caught focusing in how politics can effect business. Some of this is inevitable but, FOX News does a wonderful job with politics, if FOX Business need to avoid becoming just a business oriented offshoot of that.

One very positive note: The segments on Fox are longer and give both the guests and host more time to go into detail during the conversation. This has always driven me crazy about CNBC, the type of “drive by” segments they do almost eliminates the possibility of detailed conversation.

The ticker:
Way too slow on changing the company prices. Each ticker hits the screen for 5 to 6 seconds which when you are looking at it is a agonizingly long time as it only take 1 to read it. Speed it up. Better yet, shrink the font and get two symbols up there at once, we can handle it.

All in all, not bad but I think FOX maybe a victim of very high expectations.

Last 5 posts by Todd Sullivan

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