A business news channel being launched by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. will debut Oct. 15, the company said Wednesday, presenting a head-on challenge to General Electric Co.’s CNBC.
Fox Business Network will be available to at least 30 million cable subscribers in New York and other markets.
Murdoch has said the new network, which has been in the works for years, will be more “business-friendly” than rival CNBC. The channel had been expected to launch sometime in the fall.
The announcement comes at the same time Murdoch is pursuing a $5 billion takeover of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. The media mogul had hoped to use the paper’s brand to bolster the new network’s credibility, although that could be complicated by a content-sharing deal Dow Jones has with CNBC that runs through 2012.
(MSNBC.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal, which owns CNBC.)
Fox Business Network will be based at News Corp.’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan and will have bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and London.
Neil Cavuto, who currently anchors a weekday business program on Fox News, will lead the new channel’s business coverage and will appear on-air. Daily operations will be led by Kevin Magee, Fox News executive vice president. Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will oversee the network.
Earlier this year, News Corp. said it had reached distribution agreements for the channel with three of the nation’s four largest cable providers: Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Charter Communications Inc. The channel will also be available through satellite television provider DirecTV Group Inc.
Shares of News Corp. rose 31 cents to close at $23.36.