Talk about your "money honeys": Fox Business Network debuted at 5 a.m. today after months of anticipation, taking flight with model-pretty anchors Jenna Lee and Nicole Petallides running down the business news headlines.

As expected, the channel offers slick graphics and a sharp, seemingly HD-ready picture (though I'm still trying to figure out why stocks editor Liz MacDonald was stuck standing in a cold field in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. for much of the morning. UPDATE: Huffington Post highlights my ignorance about all the talk of peacock hunting; rival CNBC is based in Joisey, duh! Though I still think it's a looong way to go to make a pugnacious joke, it fits the Fox M.O. to a frosty tee). There was the typical opening day jitters -- occasional missed cues, some hesistation about where to look for the cameras, and a certain repetition among some of the reports.

"We're all in need of sleep," joked Neil Cavuto, Fox News Channel's successful business anchor, a senior vice president who helped develop FBN and will host a show on the channel at 6 p.m. weekdays. See my analysis of FBN's attempt to compete with cable TV business news giant CNBC from Sunday's paper here.

One bit, "Winners and Sinners" was an interesting idea repeated too many times in a short period, rattling off the same few stories -- including a fight between a guy delivering cans of Coke and another guy delivering cans of Pepsi to a Wall Mart in Pennsylvania -- as an excuse to talk about the business side of the companies involved.

Flipping back and forth between FBN and rival CNBC, Fox seemed a little slow on news items, discussing difficulties facing the top executive at Citigroup without providing CNBC's detail that the Justice Department was spurring that bank and two others to create a fund, called a conduit, that will be able to buy around $75 billion to $100 billion in highly rated bonds and other debt from structured investment vehicles, or SIVs.

They also kept referring to USF as South Florida University in talking about the team's success, irritating me further (I did, however, like the sleek ticker graphic, which is more reader-friendly than CNBC's graphic -- though both continue to run onscreen during commercials. I also liked a something they called the Fox Translator, where anchors would explain a term such as American Depositary Receipt, while the ticker also displayed a definition.)

Former Hearst-Argyle Washington Bureau chief Peter Barnes took over at 6 a.m., joined by marquee anchor Alexis Glick -- one of the many women who were in brief contention for Katie Couric's throne at NBC -- around 7 a.m. Glick brought frothy interviews with FBN contributor Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton, while Barnes led discussions on the Winners and Sinners and cracked about USF "where did South Florida come from?" Sigh.

Since I don't know much about business, it was tough to judge the value of the commentary, which still buzzed over my head despite Cavuto's early claims that FBN would talk business in a way average folks could understand. And I'm not sure of the significance of the Fox 50, a listing of 50 companies which FBN calls "an index of the largest U.S. companies that make the products you know and use every day."

The channel has also expanded its Web site into a full-on destination, and released details about some of its programming. Looks like CNBC is in for a serious fight.

If you've got access to FBN, take a look and let me know what you think.

Here's their daily schedule:

5-6am "Fox Business Morning" Jenna & Nicole

6-10am "Money for Breakfast" Alexis Glick and Peter Barnes

10am-5pm "Fox Business," assorted anchors.

5-6pm "Happy Hour" Rebecca Gomez and Cody Willard, Repeats at 11pm

6-7pm "Cavuto," different show than his Fox News program, repeating at 9pm

7-8pm "America's Nightly Scoreboard" , hosted by David Asman, right, repeats at 10pm

8-9pm "The Dave Ramsey Show" call in show.