Categories: OLD Media Moves

Bid for Dow Jones is marketing coup for Fox Business Channel

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman writes Wednesday that the News Corp. $5 billion offer for Dow Jones & Co. is a marketing coup for its upcoming Fox Business Channel cable station because it creates awareness about business journalism. News Corp. would like to use editorial content from Dow Jones properties such as The Wall Street Journal on its new business channel.

Friedman wrote, “Sure, the future of Dow Jones is the story today. Still, I’m intrigued by what a company like Dow Jones could mean to Fox’s business channel.

“The venture is a big risk. CNBC is a powerhouse and it serves a loyal audience. Does America actually need another business network? Fox will try hard to prove it does.

“TV shows and networks ultimately succeed because they can create a buzz. If Fox’s promotional maestros managed to make ‘American Idol’ a pop-culture touchstone, don’t you think they could add some appeal to their business-news network too?

“News Corp. loves — and needs — good press. It helps them chip away at CNBC, Fox’s newest rival. Fox executives have snickered for years that CNBC is vulnerable because it’s too staid, too dull, too rooted to withstand a charge by Fox.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.