Fox Biz

Fox Business will cover the Senate vote on healthcare reform tomorrow night. Coverage begins at 8pmET with David Asman anchoring from New York and Peter Barnes reporting live from Capitol Hill.

> Update : MSNBC will break in to documentary programming for the vote with David Shuster anchoring (after watching the Michigan/Ohio State game apparently).

ICN reports that two-year-old Fox Business network is finally about to be added to the New York City suburbs via Cablevision.

Fox Business Network is expected to announce Thursday morning that it has secured an agreement with Cablevision Systems Corp. The deal will expand the business network's distribution by nearly 3 million subscribers in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area.

The NY Times' Brian Stelter reports that new Fox Business Network employee John Stossel will speak at a series of forums in Arkansas on Thursday sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, who are described as "opponents of a Democratic health care overhaul." Stelter writes:

The unusual appearances come at a time when the sister network to Fox Business, the Fox News Channel, is facing fierce criticism from the White House and its allies. In recent days critics have leaped on Mr. Stossel's speaking engagements as the latest evidence of conservative bias on the part of Fox, a unit of the News Corporation. The Obama administration has cast the network as a part of the political opposition.

Last week, a FNC spokesperson told the Huffington Post that "John Stossel is not part of the hard news division at Fox News," and that "He serves as an occasional analyst for some of the network's programming and will host specials and a forthcoming primetime program on FOX Business Network."

On his FoxBusiness.com blog, network newcomer John Stossel responds to CNN's Lou Dobbs who, on his radio show, called Stossel a "self-important ass" who has "his own brand of myopic idiocy."

The war of words began with comments Stossel made about Dobbs' stand on immigration and it continued with the "self-important ass" comment and now Stossel pulling out his own label for Dobbs:

It's better if a company goes out of business than hire foreign workers? You certainly sounded xenophobic to me.

Could be interesting if both Stossel and Dobbs end up working together at FBN.

The Observer's Felix Gillette writes about the mix of old and the new that make up the Fox Business Network -- a channel that for two years has been trying to reach a business audience in the midst of a recession:

This crowd, predominantly female, was full of fresh-faced, forward-looking optimism, and seemingly engineered by FBN chief Roger Ailes to ride effortlessly from one market high to the next and look damn good doing it.

On the one hand there is [Sandra] Smith, who joined the network for its launch in October 2007. She is sunny, blond, blue-eyed, manicured, glossy, optimistic, self-assured, radiant.

On the other, there is [Don] Imus, who joined the network earlier this month. He is 69 years old, dark, dour, stormy, self-destructive, gruff, weathered.

> Related: Mediaite - Assessing FBN, Two Years In

Earlier on "Imus in the Morning," Don Imus announced, "Lou Dobbs, the grassy knoll nut from CNN, was supposed to be on this morning, but he called up and canceled because apparently somebody there at CNN and over at MSNBC won't let any of their people appear with me anymore because -- well, we know why."

The NY Observer's Felix Gillette wants to know if there is a CNN and MSNBC ban on talent appearing on Imus' show, which is now simulcast on Fox Business Network.

Have MSNBC and CNN executives, in fact, implemented such a policy?

An MSNBC spokesperson declined to comment. But a source at the network told The Observer that Imus viewers are unlikely to see anyone from MSNBC on the show anytime soon, if ever.

As for Mr. Dobbs' absence on Imus today, a CNN spokesperson confirmed that the network did not give approval for the booking, eventually resulting in the cancellation.

Earlier this month, Imus mocked CNBC's Charlie Gasparino after he also had to cancel an appearance.

Ratings numbers for Don Imus' first week at Fox Business Network are out. "Imus in the Morning" averaged 148,000 Total Viewers in the 6-9amET timeslot for the week of October 5. That's good enough to beat CNBC's 'Squawk Box,' which averaged 145,000 Total Viewers.

The Daily News writes, "People in the industry, however, cautioned that Imus and CNBC's morning 'Squawk Box' tap different audiences and are not really in direct competition." Joe Scarborough's morning program, which some do believe is in direct competition, averaged 357,000, according to B&C.

Since FBN is not publicly rated by Nielsen, B&C could not confirm nor deny the numbers with an FBN spokesperson. A Nielsen spokesperson confirmed the Total Viewer numbers to TVNewser, though Nielsen was unable to give us A25-54 demo numbers because the company is "not providing any additional ratings for the network."

NY Times' Brian Stelter reports that CNN anchor Lou Dobbs recently met with FNC/FBN chairman Roger Ailes and could be entertaining ideas of leaving CNN and moving Fox Business Network:

Mr. Dobbs, an administration critic who calls himself an independent, met for dinner with Roger E. Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting. One of the people said Mr. Dobbs is a potential hire for the Fox Business Network, the ratings starved, two-year-old spin-off of Fox News. Mr. Ailes has shown willingness to raid other networks for Fox Business talent, adding the controversial radio host Don Imus this month and bringing aboard Mr. Stossel in a few weeks.

Dobbs has been a controversial figure for CNN and now, some immigration advocacy groups see the network's new "Latino in America" documentary as an opportunity to reignite criticism of Dobbs and CNN. Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice, issued a statement saying, "Truth is, when it comes to Latinos in America, Lou Dobbs is the elephant in the room...If the 'Latino in America' series is to be considered credible, doesn't the series have to deal with that fact?" (h/t: Johnny Dollar)

As we await ratings for day two of "Imus in the Morning" on Fox Business, two Websites are reporting on Monday's numbers -- which improved the timeslot by more than 1000%.

According to Mediaite, Imus' show averaged 177,000 Total Viewers Monday morning from 6-9amET. FBN had been averaging around 21,000 for their business day programming. Since FBN is not yet publicly rated, a Fox spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the figure with Mediaite or with Daily Finance which also received the ratings from a source. However, Nielsen confirmed the 177,000 figure with TVNewser.

Nielsen would not confirm the blog reports that Imus averaged 9,000 in the A25-54 demographic. For comparison, CNBC's "Squawk Box" averaged 151,000 Total Viewers from 6-9amET and 52,000 A25-54 demo viewers.

John Stossel, who is moving from ABC News to Fox Business Network, has some things to say about his former employer. Stossel, speaking to a crowd at Michagan's Cleary University yesterday, took a question on "the political bias of the mainstream media."

"The media leans left," said Stossel. "I quit ABC a couple weeks ago partly because they didn't like what I was doing. They viewed it as too biased...So I am going to Fox Business. Fox clearly leans right."

Video (autoplay) after the jump...

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