Through The Fly's Eyes: General Electric

from Larry Ramer of Theflyonthewall.com









Fox to Launch Business Channel; FT and CNBC Look to Join Forces

Britain’s Financial Times and GE (GE)-owned CNBC may launch an alliance if Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) succeeds in buying business news publisher Dow Jones & Co. (DJ), according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal is owned by Dow Jones, while Pearson (PSO) owns the Financial Times.

Right now, the Financial Times and CNBC are limiting their discussions to a content –sharing arrangement between their struggling websites, says the Journal. However, the British newspaper and the business news TV station could expand their collaboration if Murdoch buys the Journal and ends its content-sharing agreement with CNBC. It appears that Murdoch will take that step if he buys Dow Jones, since News Corp. plans to launch a business news channel in October that will go up against CNBC. The Journal currently has an obligation to make its reporters exclusively available for CNBC interviews, and the Financial Times may reach a similar agreement with CNBC if News Corp. gets Dow Jones.

An alliance between CNBC and The Financial Times “makes tremendous sense for both media outlets,” says Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal.

It makes sense. The Financial Times and CNBC would benefit by cross-promoting each other. The Financial Times stands to benefit to a greater extent, since its brand is not as well known in the U.S. as CNBC. The Financial Times website, for example, has just 90,000 online subscribers, compared with 931,000 subscribers for The Wall Street Journal.

Also, Pearson investors have been clamoring for the company to sell the Financial Times, in order to avoid a “circulation war” with Murdoch, according to a recent Thomson Financial story. CNBC is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, if we can draw any conclusions from the continuing presence of ratings-poor MSNBC. However, CNBC’s website, ranked 58th in popularity among business news websites globally, could certainly use the infusion of new European readers that collaboration with the Financial Times would likely provide.