[Timesink]

What I want to know is why Fox News Channel is airing a commercial for a CNN morning show? Are they now incorporating fair and balanced advertising?

They're not. Your local cable company is. When they can't sell a spot, they run a "house ad," which is usually just an ad for some show on some channel they air, or an ad for some other service they offer like cable modems. These house ads are generally just thrown randomly into the mix, so you'll often end up seeing something bizarre like a CNN ad on Fox News.

[ThinkFreedom]

It's also probably because the cable company sees the audience for both CNN and FNC as being "news viewers", and so figure that people watching FNC will also be interested in a show on CNN. Really, their job is to get you to keep cable, and they figure by sporadically showing house ads for shows that - they figure - would get a similar demographic to the one that you are watching now, you're more likely to watch cable vs. network tv, and thus more likely to keep cable.

The problem is that CNN's and FNC's primary demographic isn't "news viewers"; its liberals and conservatives (respectively). Most CNN viewers wouldn't tune in to FNC - they'd be better off cross promoting MTV or Queer Eye. Similarly, they'd be better off cross-promoting the history channel, one of the family friendly channels, or something like that on FNC.