The new biz kids

Among Fox News Channel’s influences on television news has been the proliferation of the “swoosh,” the dramatic sweeping graphics and loud chime that accompany a breaking news bulletin on the cable network.

So, as its sister Fox Business Network launches today, what kind of attention-grabbing innovations will News Corp.’s latest cable venture introduce?

“We have a klaxon from a World War II submarine, one of those, ‘Ah-oo-gahs!’ ” quipped Kevin Magee, the Fox News executive vice president in charge of the new channel’s daily operations.

Jokes aside, early indications suggested that the cable start-up would try to lure viewers with the same flashy, irreverent style that helped propel Fox News past its cable competitors. Executives were tight-lipped about exactly what Fox Business Network would look like when it went live at 2 a.m. PDT, but they vowed to shake off the staid formality of traditional financial coverage. The staff is being drilled on using a conversational style instead of economic jargon, and one daily program will be broadcast live from a popular Wall Street watering hole.

“We don’t accept it as a given that business news is inherently boring,” said Neil Cavuto, the channel’s managing editor and one of its main on-air personalities.

Implicit in the network’s approach is a swipe at industry leader CNBC, whose ubiquity in brokerage firms and on trading floors has made it the dominant business cable network as well as a lucrative player for NBC Universal.

FBN executives emphasize that they see CNBC as just one of their competitors amid a crowded business news landscape that includes newspapers, financial websites and Bloomberg Television, a smaller cable outlet.

Nevertheless, the debut of FBN after more than two years of planning is largely being viewed as a direct challenge to CNBC, in part because of the personalities involved.

Fox News chief Roger Ailes, the pugnacious television executive who ran CNBC in the mid-1990s, is now overseeing the launch of its challenger.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, he compared the matchup to a Civil War battle.

“Fox has a culture unlike any place I’ve ever been,” Magee said. “It’s not enough to want to win. You have to hate to lose to work here, and it’s got to really bother you.”

Executives acknowledge that they face an uphill battle in taking on 18-year-old CNBC. The Fox network will initially be available in 30 million households (including those of Time Warner customers in Los Angeles), a third of CNBC’s reach.

While the older network draws an average of just 247,000 viewers during the day, according to Nielsen Media Research, advertisers are willing to pay a premium for the chief executives and other well-heeled viewers that CNBC argues are not measured in the ratings because they watch from their offices. This year, the network is on track to make more than $335 million in profit, up 10% from last year, according to the research firm SNL Kagan.

“We take everyone seriously,” said CNBC President Mark Hoffman. “But we’re as strong as we’ve ever been, and we’re confident about the future.”

Fox executives are hoping News Corp.’s recent purchase of the Journal’s parent company will help bolster FBN. Although the newspaper has a deal to provide exclusive business analysis to CNBC until 2012, lawyers are scrutinizing the agreement to see whether there’s any wiggle room to bring Journal reporters on in some capacity before that time.

In the meantime, the nascent network is aiming to gain traction by coming at business news from a slightly different tack. The mantra at FBN’s Manhattan headquarters: “From Wall Street to Main Street.”

“I think we can do a better job of translating difficult concepts and connecting to the viewers in a way that they get something out of it and have some fun,” said Alexis Glick, a former CNBC correspondent who is vice president of business news and anchor of FBN’s morning program “Money for Breakfast.”

“We want people to look at this channel and feel the need to turn the volume up. You should feel the passion, you should feel the energy.”

FBN hopes to attract a broad audience by focusing on personal finance issues such as the housing market and small-business needs, emphasizing material success as the realization of the American dream. Upbeat promotional videos on the network’s website tout its central themes: “Money,” “Success” and “Happiness.”

“The hard-core purists who are going to want to know the slightest nuance in the Commodities Research Bureau index or the price of tin in Malaysia, I might disappoint them,” Cavuto said. “But the greater audience that wants to get the bigger picture, I hope they’ll come to Fox.”

The network’s more populist approach is partly a matter of necessity, as CNBC is firmly lodged in Wall Street culture.

“On the trading floor, I’m sure they’d scream bloody murder if you changed CNBC,” said Phil Roth, chief technical market analyst at New York brokerage house Miller Tabak & Co., where office sets are all tuned to the business network.

So while Fox Business plans extensive coverage of the market -- and has even built a set on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange -- it won’t spend as much time analyzing individual stocks as its competitor, executives said. A ticker will run along the screen with market data but in a more “digestible” format. Informality is the norm; one afternoon show called “Happy Hour” will be broadcast live from the Waldorf Astoria’s Bull and Bear Bar.

“The fact of the matter is, there aren’t enough CEOs in the world to put a cable channel on for,” Magee said. “We have to bring more people into the tent.”

It’s a strategy that was attempted by CNNfn, which launched in 1995 promising more accessible business coverage, only to fold nine years later. Media analysts cautioned that it is difficult to simultaneously provide mass market programming and target an elite audience. Make the coverage too broad, and you risk alienating the Wall Street viewers who command high ad rates.

CNBC, Hoffman said pointedly, “is not trying to be all things to all people.”

Still, networks such as Discovery Channel, which has supplemented its science programming with popular adventure shows, have shown it can be done, said Andy Donchin, director of national broadcast at media buying firm Carat USA.

“I wouldn’t bet against them,” said Donchin, noting how Fox News managed to outflank CNN.

FBN executives argue that its consumer content will still appeal to Wall Street viewers.

“Every CEO is a regular person just like you and me, who’s making regular decisions just like us,” Glick said. “Where do I send my kids to school? Should I buy real estate? Is now the time to buy this stock?”

And corporate leaders may be drawn by News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s promise that FBN will be “a little more business-friendly than CNBC.”

Hoffman calls his network “unabashedly capitalist,” but FBN executives have already sought to differentiate themselves from the competition by suggesting that their channel will more fully embrace the free market.

“Look, we’re the people who are going to say, ‘You know what? Capitalism, making money, having success, being happy -- that’s a good thing,’ ” Glick said. “Not all of corporate America is corrupt.”

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matea.gold@latimes.com