Critic on Fox Biz: 'No Wonder Nobody's Watching'

"A Hugh Hefner-style gala at Rupert Murdoch's pad" with "a market share comparable to a personal blog": That, in a couple of pithy phrases, is the story of Fox Business Network so far, according to Liza Featherstone.

And there's plenty more where that came from! Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Featherstone weights the fledgling network's successes (the most recent of which is bringing on Eric Bolling in-house as a contributor after a protracted legal wrangle with CNBC) against its shortcomings, chief among which, in her view, is a failure to live up to its populist rhetoric.

"Curiously, given its repeated commitment to Main Street, small-business people are nearly as invisible as workers in FBN's bullish world, an unusual place inhabited entirely by pundits, analysts, and financiers," she writes. "No wonder nobody's watching."

Some other highlights:

-On Happy Hour anchordude Cody Willard: "With an aura of his supposed coolness plus business success, he's clearly intended to have an aspirational appeal, though his smug grin may lead some to thoughts of violent expropriation -- or, more likely, channel-switching."

-On what it means, in practice, to be "pro-business":

One of the weirdest things about Fox Business Network -- and potentially most alienating to an economically anxious middle-class audience -- is its relentless effort to squeeze upbeat news out of a terrible economy.... Bad news is reported, but always quickly countered by good, no matter how far Fox's cheerleaders have to stretch to find the good.

Such exuberance may be off-putting to his intended audience on FBN, members of the nervous middle class, who are dealing with reality. According to a recent Pew survey, 50 percent of Americans say they are not happy with their economic situation. Most likely, the relentlessly upbeat prattle from FBN's Pollyannas will annoy the hell out of them.

-On FBN's rotating cast of hot chicks: "Some of the Murdoch Playmates are genuine bimbos, while others play their dopey roles convincingly, and the choice of material they're given isn't pretty."