There's a strong possibility that News Corp will buy Dow Jones which, among other things, publishes the Wall Street Journal. CNBC relies quiet heavily on Dow Jones/WSJ, and could loose them to FBN.
Essentially one of the major reasons News Corporation is after Dow Jones is to make the Fox Business Channel a major proposition and threat to CNBC and Bloomberg. Despite the end of the DJ equity stake in CNBC's international business, a lot of the contributors to CNBC US - Bob O'Brien would be the main one that comes to mind - are in fact DJ employees. Taking away CNBC's access to DJ would hit the channel, although it most certainly wouldn't be a death blow. More to the point, it would give the FBC a respectability in the business community that it might not necessarily have at the moment.
Unfortunately CNBC US seems to be moving away from serious business news to the type of sensationalist programming James Cramer's Mad Money seems to have started. (The international channels don't show Mad Money, or more likely can't), but it seems likely given FNC's style that FBC will probably show a lot more of this.
Reports today suggest Murdoch has secured Bancroft family agreement to buy Dow Jones. Could make the competition between Fox and CNBC interesting...
Not sure if anyone saw Sunday's open to CNBC Asia Squawk Box. Amanda Drury sat stareing at the camera for a while before Martin Soong, after first telling her she was live on air, eventually started reading the headlines himself!
Anyone wondering what has happened to Simon Hobbes, apparently he's working on a new series of interviews for CNBC Europe and will be back in the Autumn, though whether he will get a business day slot back who knows....