Financial Times, CNBC discussing partnership

Aaron Patrick of The Wall Street Journal writes Thursday that the Financial Times newspaper and business news cable network CNBC are discussing ways to share video and Web operations.

The Journal currently as an agreement with CNBC, but that could end if News Corp., which is starting its own business news cable network in October, is successful in acquiring Dow Jones & Co., the parent of the Journal.

Patrick wrote, “The current negotiations between the Financial Times Group and CNBC are highly likely to lead to a commercial arrangement between the companies but there are no discussions about combining any of their operations, a person familiar with the situation said. An announcement is not imminent, the person said.

“Pearson has struggled to attract readers to FT.com, which charges for access to most of its articles. The site has 90,000 paying subscribers, according to Pearson’s most recent annual report. The Journal’s Web site, wsj.com, has 931,000 subscribers, a spokesman said.

“CNBC.com has also had trouble getting readers. It is the 58th most popular financial news Web site in the world with 823,000 visitors in May, according to ComScore Networks Inc. The most popular site is Yahoo Finance with 34 million visitors in May, according to ComScore.”

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