Chatting with Rupert Murdoch at an investor conference some weeks back, I asked the News Corp. (NWS ) chairman where things stood with his long-awaited Fox business channel. “We’re hiring people,” he said–note plural–with an eye toward an ’07 launch. This conversation came just a few days after the announcement that former nbc on-air star Alexis Glick would serve as director of business news at the Fox News Channel and play a role on a business channel should one launch. Now comes word that Comcast (CMCSA ), the nation’s largest cable outfit, will carry the channel on its digital service. Advertisement
Murdoch & Co. first floated the notion of a 24/7 business channel two-plus years ago, and we’re still waiting. This is unusual in the House of Fox. Murdoch generally trusts his gut and goes for broke. Case in point: He bucked conventional wisdom and launched an alternative news channel. (It worked.) He has waxed confident and expansive about the still-not-official, still-unnamed business channel. Interestingly, Roger Ailes, chairman and ceo of Fox News Network (NWS ) and the savvy programmer who would actually run the new channel, has not.
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