Republican Debate on Fox Business Draws 13.5 Million

Fox Business Network has long stood in the shadow of its much larger and louder sibling, Fox News Channel, and its outsize personalities like Bill O’Reilly. And in the financial world, the network consistently trails its competitor CNBC in television ratings.

On Tuesday night, Fox Business Network stepped into the spotlight with its broadcast of the fourth Republican presidential debate, in Milwaukee, attracting 13.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen data — the largest audience in its eight-year history.

The network received generally positive reviews for its handling of the debate, and worked hard to distinguish itself from the controversial performance by CNBC two weeks earlier — tweaking its rival network several times during the debate.

The viewership was a standout for the network but less than that for previous debates in the 2016 race. Earlier debates on Fox News and CNN drew more than 23 million viewers.

The Republican debate on Tuesday was the first ever for Fox Business and one of its biggest moments since its start in October 2007.

At the time, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation was in advanced talks to acquire Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for about $5 billion. The new network sought to tap the prestige of The Journal and other Dow Jones brands as it built a new competitor to CNBC and Bloomberg Television.

News Corporation has since been separated into two companies, with 21st Century Fox holding television assets like Fox Business Network while News Corporation holds publishing assets like The Journal.

The network is led by Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive of Fox News and Fox Business, and over the years it has hired a number of personalities away from CNBC, including one of its biggest stars, Maria Bartiromo, who was one of the moderators Tuesday night.

Along with Ms. Bartiromo, the other moderators were Neil Cavuto, another Fox Business anchor, and Gerard Baker, the editor of The Wall Street Journal. They strove throughout the event to draw a contrast to the debate on CNBC, which became a lightning rod for complaints about the focus of the questions, a perceived bias and a lack of speaking time.

After that debate, which drew 14 million viewers, the Republican National Committee and the individual candidates’ campaigns met to discuss changes in the format.

Fox Business was not shy about gibing CNBC, as it tried to emphasize its focus on policy and avoid becoming part of the story. Mr. Cavuto closed the debate by saying, “It wasn’t about us; it’s about them.”

Mr. Ailes congratulated the staff on Tuesday’s performance in a note.

“The debate last night was excellent and showcased FBN as a world class financial network,” he told the employees. “Every one of our team leaders accomplished our goal of presenting a serious, meaningful debate while holding the audience.”

He added that Mr. Murdoch called Wednesday morning to pass along his congratulations and said that “he thought the debate was professional and intelligent.”

Despite its success Tuesday night, Fox Business Network trails CNBC in the ratings race. It had 75,000 total viewers on average from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. during the four weeks that ended Nov. 8, compared with 196,000 for CNBC, according to Nielsen data provided by Horizon Media. Yet Fox Business has been climbing, increasing its audience 25 percent from the same period in 2014.

It also has more limited distribution. Fox Business is available in about 82 million homes, fewer than the 97 million homes where CNBC, CNN and Fox News are available.

The network has benefited from its connection to Fox News, the country’s highest-rated cable news network. Helping to lift ratings, the two channels are coupled on some cable systems.

On Time Warner Cable in New York City, for instance, Fox Business Network is on Channel 43 and Fox News Channel is on Channel 44.

Fox Business Network also streamed the debate on its website,FoxBusiness.com, where use peaked at 1.4 million concurrent streams at 10:15 p.m., according to Akamai, an Internet services company. That beat CNN’s 921,000 concurrent streams for its Republican debate and the 1.3 million concurrent live streams that NBC reported for the 2015 Super Bowl.