Larry Kudlow's show to debut on Fox Business Network next week

New York(CNN Business) Larry Kudlow is being tapped to revitalize Fox Business Network in the afternoons.

Kudlow, who was the director of the National Economic Council under President Trump, is taking over the channel's 4 p.m. hour starting February 16.

His unnamed show will re-air at 7 p.m., which means he is partially replacing Lou Dobbs, whose 5 p.m. talk show reaired at 7. Last Friday Fox abruptly cancelled "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and named two interim anchors for the time slot.

Kudlow was a CNBC host and commentator before joining the Trump administration. His assignment is to boost Fox Business Network's performance against CNBC and other channels.

But Kudlow will have his hosting work cut out for him.

Fox Business is the much lower-rated sibling of Fox News. Dobbs was the most popular host, but he only averaged 300,000 viewers a day at 5 p.m.

The program that preceded his, "After the Bell," is what Kudlow will now be replacing.

The ratings for last Thursday, which turned out to be Dobbs' last day on the air, illustrate the audience challenge for Kudlow and Fox Business.

"After the Bell," at the key hour after U.S. markets closed, averaged 150,000 viewers, while CNBC's rival show "Closing Bell" averaged 326,000.

Fox Business has been pinched by competition from Newsmax too — that channel averaged 320,000 on Thursday afternoon.

The business-oriented program on Fox News, "Your World with Neil Cavuto," averaged 1.1 million. Both CNN and MSNBC had upwards of 2 million viewers for the hour.