FBN Shuffles the Deck
Can Kevin Magee find a winning hand to play at FBN? A slow start was to be expected, but viewers have been slow to tune in. Not even FBN’s Mane Man Cody WIllard can carry the channel forever.
Magee has his first tweak under his belt, and lord knows it won’t be the last:
Viewers of the Fox Business Network — and it remains unclear how many there are — may notice a number of changes on Monday.
Some anchors, like Alexis Glick, Stuart Varney and Liz Claman, will get better face-time. Some programs will be broken into one-hour segments to make them seem more focused. New programs will be introduced to punch up the hours surrounding the 4 p.m. market close.
“The nice thing about a start-up is that you get to make a lot of tweaks,” said Kevin Magee, an executive vice president at Fox Business Network....The changes will affect almost every daytime hour, eliminating some multihour programs in favor of one-hour formats at pivotal points in the day. The network clearly sees a star in Ms. Glick, a former CNBC host, who will now lead a cast of characters on the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. program “Money for Breakfast.” She is also the solo host of “Opening Bell,” a 9 a.m. stock market curtain raiser. NYT
FBN needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up; turning into the Glick Network is not likely to work. Bringing on Brian Sullivan from Bloomberg and harnessing Minyanville is a step in the right direction, but FBN’s Main Street orientation is apparently not playing in Peoria, or Wall Street. This would seem to be a move away from Main Street and in CNBC’s general direction.
The on-air talent has been mishandled to some extent, and until Magee can find a winning formula, Financial News Network on YouTube will continue to garner higher ratings.
Classic FNN from October 1987
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Fox Business Refines Lineup in Daytime
New York Times
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The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of 1440 Wall Street. This commentary in no way constitutes a solicitation of business or investment advice. It is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.
Reality Wall Street TV: No Experience Required
Wall Street Warriors featured people scraping and clawing their way through Wall Street’s viper pit, often bootstrapping their way along.
But a new reality show in the UK will take people with no trading experience, set them up with a grubstake, and get out of the way:
Century Films is working on a documentary for the BBC and wants your help.
The production company is looking for 5 people from outside the financial markets to take part in a real-life trading experiment. Participants will be provided with capital by a successful hedge fund entrepreneur and will be given the opportunity, after some training, to trade in the markets. And, in addition to strutting your stuff on a trading floor, you will also get to keep any profit share, as you would in a real-life hedge fund!
So, if you know someone from outside the City who you think might have what it takes to participate in this exciting new series, please let them know about this opportunity.
Interested parties should please contact Sascha or Satnam on 0207 378 6108 or 07851 043 737. Or e-mail a picture of yourself, a contact number and brief background details to:
Please note that Century is not after anyone who has any professional experience of trading.
Of course, this is a genius idea. Sometimes the less you know, the better off your are. Just be sure to keep those guys at Goldman away from the newbies, they will pick their pocket in a heartbeat.
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Ever Wanted To Be A Trader ? Now’s Your Chance
Here is the City
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Century Films create innovative, hard-hitting documentaries and dramas for all the major UK broadcasters, with sales to many international channels.
Our work is distinctive, challenging and inventive - and above all, compelling.
We are renowned for producing award-winning work that gives a fresh angle on difficult subjects.
By applying an innovative approach to our films, we push the boundaries of documentary and drama production. We aim to relate intelligent, true stories that really grip and move audiences.
Century Films
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Eric Bolling is Iron Man
The fast money crowd is always looking for action, and Eric Bolling is often in the thick of it.
And while Dennis Gartman has taken some commodity positions off of his sheets, Bolling is still ferreting out some ways to make money, assuming the trends in place remain friendly. Eric went Bolling for Dollars with Peter Barnes today, and seems inflexible in his posture on steel:
Bolling: Let’s start with oil. We’ve just touched the $121 price that we almost touched yesterday. That’s on the heels of the news this morning that Nigerian rebels are bombing the pipeline yet again. That goes on all the time, Peter, and we know that so that oil will probably come on later in the week, Exxon/Mobil says. Shell also says they have may some outages as well. So you combine that with the Iranians basically renewing their commitment to enriching uranium. Think about this for a second. The Iranians need uranium for nuclear power. Yet they’re sitting on some of the world’s biggest deposits of fossil fuels. They don’t really need this, they’re clearly using this to develop a bomb. So I think that’s very smart that we continue to threaten sanctions against Iran. So those two news pieces brought oil to $121 bucks.
Barnes: Geopolitical risk. What’s hot?
Bolling: Steel is hot - hot rolled steel. Steel prices are up 14% versus last year. The way steel works, they pick a price right around this time of year, it goes retroactive to the beginning of the year. But the point is last year’s steel prices were up 17%. This year they’re up 14%. And they’ve raised prices twice that this year so far.
Weekend at Warren’s
Will Warren Buffett announce his successor this weekend at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting? I doubt it, but you never know. And while his stockpicking skills get all the ink, he is known to be a decent fixed income investor as well. Is he active in the market for auction rate securities?
Many of Buffett's investments are tied to the housing markets, and his comments this weekend might impact trading next week. And while talking about the past is important, I want to know what he is doing going forward.
If you are not going to Omaha, Morningstar will be doing a little video blogging from the conference. More on that after the jump, along with our favorite Liz Claman picture, who will be covering things for Rupert Murdoch and Fox on her Cash Flow Blog.
