Yes, it's true, today we get all our news from MSNBC — but this especially turned our heads: An ad for the Fox Business Network, running on MSNBC, subsidiary of NBC and sister-cabler to CNBC, whose lunch Fox-Biz is all but poised to devour. For their part, here's FNC handing over good money to their arch-competitor — home of Keith Olbermann, for God's sake! The dude who once held Bill O'Reilly's face on a popsicle stick and did a heil! That must hurt Irena Briganti at least a tiny bit. [Update on that point below.]

Still, business is business, and in a way this is a victory for both sides, depending of course on who's spinning and how they define "victory." Having FNC admit via their bottom line that MSNBC eyeballs are worth having is one kind of indignity; suffering to broadcast your rival's assertion that they are "the most powerful name in news" is another. Either way, we're just going to go ahead and note that Lil' Cody Willard's s hairstyle is about as un-businesslike as any we've seen, though we hear the double-peace-sign has replaced the handshake as the international sign of fair dealing. The part of the commercial we managed to record is below — if anyone can make a collapsing mortgage market fun, it's these guys!

Update: We heard from someone at Fox Biz Network — they're on the ball! — who informed us that the ad ran as part of a larger ad buy from Time Warner called a "local avail", to run across a selection of their channels. So it wasn't in direct homage to MSNBC eyeballs, but hey, we'll give FBN enough credit to figure they know a good bargain from a bad one, and knew what they'd be getting when their ad dollars were allocated. So we'll allow MSNBC to retain that point. But, thank you for the clarification!

Update to the Update: Drama! Some bloggers are stunned that I was unwise to the ways of local avail ad buys. I am only too, too happy to learn and update accordingly, but still stand by my assessment of the exchange as a deal, albeit through a middleman (rationale in my comment here on a post at The Cable Game). All references to Fox Business Network as Fox Business Channel have been corrected, including acronyms — though, yes yes, Big Head, we're very embarrassed. From you, we could learn. But on a more serious note, ETP takes the veracity of our posts seriously, and is only too happy to update when we learn we've posted in error or without the benefit of full context. So the post has been updated to reflect the additional information, both in the body of the original text and in the updates above. Thanks for reading!

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