Dirty Pool at CNBC?

Bloggers are weighing in on the launch of Fox Businesses channel and website, and CNBC contributor Paul Kedrosky is apparently not impressed.

Conflicted or not, he offers up his take:

The upshot: I am considerably less impressed than I thought I would be. I was expecting something smoother and more fun, with fewer suits, fewer talking heads, and generally less C-SPAN-feeling.

For example, despite having surely been in the works for ages, the site feels somewhat slapdash, with supposedly embeddable video that is missing the correct tags to make it embeddable. The front page feels very 1998, with a huge banner, minimal live content, a few wandering headlines, and that’s about it. Where is the live content? Where is the “you are there” feeling? Where is the sense that we are in a post-YouTube, post-Ze world? Fox Business’s site has done the near-impossible: It has made the cluttered CNBC website seem darn good. Infectious Greed

Kedrosky is a technology specialist, but apparently cannot figure out how easily imbeddable the video’s are on the FOX Business website. Maybe Paul should mouse over the 5 icons on the bottom of the videos toolbar, the middle button will light up “EMBED”.

It is very easy, and the video’s work just fine. You can even size them to your site.

This is a major flaw in CNBC’s closed system.  On Cody Willard’s WallStrip appearance months ago he went “short” CNBC’s website, and although it is better than it used to be, FOX’s less is more approach stands in contrast to CNBC’s cluttered site. Panning FOX’s site is a little premature as it should evolve over the next few weeks.

Paul’s comments a few days ago regarding streaming the content live over the web are interesting, however. The FOX channel is not carried on Cablevision at present, which means Long Island does not get to watch the channel. CNBC cannot readily stream its content in an end run around cable providers, and FOX might not have as many legacy issues to deal with similar to CNBC.  If they can steam the content they would likely pick up many users, along with Wall Street pro’s who do not have access to a television.

Food for thought.

Meanwhile, FOX is rightfully upset after Fast Money ripped off their happy hour concept, which will run live at 5pm from the Bull and Bear Bar at the Waldorf-Astoria

Yesterday, CNBC aired a new segment during Fast Money called “Happy Hour” which was set in a bar in New York City. About half an hour after that segment aired, ICN got a tip that there was more than meets the eye to this new segment. I learned that FBN was going to launch a 5pm program called Happy Hour which was set in a bar in New York City. Coincidence? Hardly. The FBN version had been in the planning stages since July. Someone must have tipped CNBC off to what FBN was up to and CNBC quickly threw together this knockoff to steal FBN’s thunder. This doesn’t sound like the action a network that Jeff Zucker said was “not worried” and was “not concerned” about what FBN did. The FBN version will premiere on October 15th and will originate from a NYC bar called “Bull and Bear”.
Inside Cable News

First Impressions of Fox Business
Infectious Greed

Fox Business vs CNBC: Will the InterWeb Settle Things?
Infectious Greed

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