Fox Business claims weekend OT

Ask any business reporter covering the financial crisis what they were doing this weekend — the answer is probably not “mowing the lawn” or “doing things that don’t involve work.”

The folks over at Fox Business Network is playing that to their advantage. A new ad, first reported by TVNewser (we think), points out that FBN was broadcasting live news this weekend while brand X, the much larger and older rival network CNBC, was mainly running taped broadcasting.

That said, CNBC was live on Sunday night with a two-hour special, but FBN is taking credit for running live coverage on Sunday morning, reporting that crucial progress had been made in Washington on the $700 billion bailout plan. At the time, spokeswoman Irena Briganti said, CNBC was airing a re-run of Suze Orman. Briganti said FBN also was running live for several hours on Saturday and Sunday while CNBC was not.

The bottom line, according to Fox? “We own this story.” The bottom line, according to CNBC’s Brian Steel? “Judging from our measured ratings alone, which does not include the most affluent homes and out of home viewing like trading floors and C-suites, we know Wall Street, Main Street and the investment community around the world are turning to CNBC and CNBC.com.” In other words: “we think we have more viewers.”

Here’s the ad, which ran in today’s New York Times, Wall Street Journal and on CNBC itself, at least within the New York City area on Time Warner’s cable system.