Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth shoots down the so-called “challenge” a new Thomson Reuters business channel would have to CNBC, Bloomberg or FBN. The Daily Telegraph first reported the news of the channel that would “rival that of Bloomberg and CNBC.” Learmonth writes:
CNBC achieved full distribution — 95 million odd cable and satellite homes — in the early 90s in the go-go era of new cable channels. Now analog capacity on those systems is full, and the only way to get carriage for a new channel is if you have the leverage of, say, News Corp. And even Rupert Murdoch’s muscle has only been able to do so much for the newly launched Fox Business Network…
Learmonth writes that whatever the channel becomes, (perhaps a linear channel on the Web) “we’re talking about a micro-business, no threat to the $330 million in estimated profits CNBC took in last year. The world just isn’t clamoring for another business news channel, and cable operators know it.”