News Corp's fledgling (NYSE:NWS) Fox Business News cable channel reached a distribution agreement with Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) cable business, a key step in Rupert Murdoch's plan to go head-to-head against General Electric Co.'s (NYSE:GE) CNBC.
As the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) mentions, the deal will make Fox Business News, which Murdoch says will launch this year, available to Time Warner's 13 million subscribers. Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA), the no. 1 cable company. has already agreed to carry the channel.
Ever since Murdoch announced his plans for Fox Business News, I've had my doubts about whether there is enough of an audience to sustain two business channels along with Bloomberg TV (I worked for Bloomberg for seven years) as advertisers shift their spending online. Fox probably is going to offer very attractive rates to advertisers to get them to buy commercial time on the network. Companies will respond enthusiastically at first because they always like to be part of something new. Whether those advertisers will still be around six months later when Fox Business News becomes part of the media landscape remains an open question.
Still, Murdoch faced those same questions when he launched Fox News several years ago to compete against CNN and look what happened.
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