Fox Business Network will make its Manhattan debut on channel 43, when the service bows Oct. 15.
Multichannel News has learned that FBN has secured that expanded basic channel position with Time Warner Cable of New York. In concert with FBN’s launch on the Time Warner Cable systems serving upper and lower Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island and western Brooklyn, Fox News Channel will move to channel 44 from channel 46.
The networks’ adjacency in the nation’s financial capital will serve to bump MSNBC and Sci-Fi Channel from their current respective channel positions of 43 and 44. On Time Warner Cable of New York's new lineup MSNBC will be positioned at 14, right next to CNBC at 15. Sci-Fi will then be located at 17.
The news comes 40 days before FBN’s scheduled launch when it begins competing with NBC Universal’s financial news sector leader, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV.
FBN-- led by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News and chairman of Fox Television Stations, and Fox News senior vice president and managing editor of business news Neil Cavuto, who will oversee content and business coverage at the new service -- will come out of the gate with at least 31 million subscribers. In addition to its accord with Time Warner Cable, the network has carriage contracts with such distributors as Comcast, DirecTV and Charter Communications.
Meanwhile, FBN and FNC parent News Corp. is moving toward finalizing a $5.6 billion deal to acquire The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones. That agreement should prove to be a valuable asset as News pushes the FNC spinoff out of the gate. While Dow Jones has an agreement that runs through 2012 under which Journal reporters appear during on-air reports on CNBC, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch has suggested in interviews that the pact wouldn’t prevent FBN from using WSJ talent.
