With anticipation building, News Corp. (NWS-A) announced today that its upcoming business cable network show will be launched in the fourth quarter this year, providing competition for the CNBC (GE) network.
The network said that it wouldn't go forward until they reached a potential 30 million TV subscribers. Now with distribution deals in place with large cable operators like Time Warner (TWX), Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) and Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR), 
along with satellite operator DirecTV Group Inc., they are now in a position of having that desired reach.
The Fox Business Channel will operate under the supervision of Roger Ailes, of whom Rupert Murdoch said in a statement, "Having built Fox News into a cable news leader and a cultural phenomenon against all expectations, I'm confident that Roger Ailes and his team can do the same in business news."
Overseeing the new coverage of the Fox Business Channel will be current Fox News business managing editor Neil Cavuto; a good choice. Kevin Magee, the Fox News Executive Vice President will take care of the day-to-day operations of the new network.
Murdoch says of his chief competitor CNBC that "They leap on every scandal. We won't ignore them, of course. There's just an atmosphere to it that's a little negative." He added that "We wanted to be more business friendly."
With Bloomberg Television and CNBC, some think that it will be hard for there to be three 24-hour channels successfully covering business. If Fox is able to transfer their different way of covering the news to its business channel, it'll be their competitors that will have to be concerned about that issue, not Fox.
Comment Preview