A Business News Bonanza?

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The fact that you've found your way onto The Motley Fool's website probably indicates that you're smarter -- or at least more curious -- than the average bear, and that you have an inherent interest in financial, economic, and business information. This is a sector of the news that has been somewhat slow to develop and mature, at least on a stand-alone basis. But it is now gaining tremendous momentum, thanks at least in part to the emergence of both cable television and the Internet.

Gone, for instance, are the days when the late Louis Rukeyser's excellent and long-running Wall Street Week, which aired each Friday evening on the Public Broadcasting Service, was essentially the only televised game in town for market aficionados. It's now virtually impossible to walk into a brokerage office and not encounter a television set perched high up on the wall and tuned to General Electric's (NYSE: GE) CNBC business network, with its all-day attention to the ups and downs of the capital markets and the companies represented therein.

But competition for CNBC may be just around the corner. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), which for a couple of years has considered launching a business channel of its own, clearly moved a giant step closer to doing so this week when it reached a distribution agreement with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) to make the network available to the company's 13 million cable subscribers. Time Warner Cable, whose spinoff as a separate entity is imminent, is the nation's second-largest cable operator behind Comcast's (Nasdaq: CMCSA) 24-million-subscriber operation. Comcast already has reached a deal with News Corp. to carry the new network.

And you wouldn't be betting the farm in vain if you wagered that satellite operators DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) and Echostar (Nasdaq: DISH) will carry the new business network as well. Murdoch and News Corp. technically still own a significant portion of DirecTV, although this year Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LCAPA) will acquire control of the provider in exchange for Liberty's $11 billion stake in News Corp.

According to those familiar with the Time Warner deal, the companies also have agreed to multi-year transmission rights for the carriage of the Fox broadcast stations. Apparently included is an increase in the license fees charged by the Fox News Channel. It also appears that Time Warner initially will pay News Corp. a relatively low $0.10 to $0.15 per subscriber for the rights to carry the new business channel.

Assuming that News Corp. decides to launch its new business network -- and with the distribution it has lined up, there appears to be little reason why it wouldn't -- the Time Warner agreement appears to be a win-win deal for both companies. And I think that the other companies that would be among the network's distributors would also be on the winning side. But the biggest winners of all may be you business news-loving Fools.

For related Foolishness:

• Fool on the Street: Time Warner's Happy Feet
• A Good Opener for News Corp.
• Comcast: A Rediscovered Highflier

Time Warner is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. To see what other great companies are helping the newsletter crush the market, take a free 30-day trial today.

Fool contributor David Lee Smith has an insatiable appetite for business news. He owns no shares in any of the companies mentioned, and he welcomes your comments or questions. The Fool has a disclosure policy.