Competition Time for Business Networks as Mergers Season Starts

Over the last 48 hours, two major announcements from the corporate world along with added pressure in the Airline sector, and the prospect of coming out of recession means corporate merger activity is going to be busier than ever.  As a direct result, the business news channels are going to be stiving harder than ever to break the stories first, and have the gritty details before the rest.  Either one of the two will almost certainly become advertising fodder for the coming financial year.

Deutsche Telekom's UK mobile operation, T-Mobile, and France Telecom's Orange mobile operation have announced that with regulatory approval, they will merge their operations. The announcement comes hot off the tail of Kraft Foods attempt at a takeover of Cadbury Schweppes, an approach which was flatly rejected.

Moves on this scale, not only create silly season in the newsrooms of the business channels.  Indeed, even the BBC's Business Editor, Robert Peston even commented on the day's merger news that "this is a big deal".  These kind of business stories routinely make the headlines on the traditional networks evening newscasts, let alone the cable news channels.  The common resulting outcome of this is the appearance of business newsers on the 'normal' news.

The other big focus of business news as well as normal news is the forthcoming Airline uncertainty.  In the UK already, an airline has gone bust in the last week.  Sky Europe, which operated out of Manchester and Luton Airports went under as its debt rose uncontrollably.  It is widely expected that there will be a lot of activity in this sector in the coming months, making more news for business networks to dig their teeth into.

So, back to the main subject as a whole, the business news channels.  The end of this quarter, and the start of the next could well be a chance for Fox Business to excel against its behemoth of a rival, CNBC.  In Europe, its all about Bloomberg and CNBC EMEA, and in Asia-Pacific, its News Corp's Sky News Business Channel going head to head with CNBC Asia Pacific and Bloomberg once again.

From a business newser's point of view, its going to be an interesting couple of months...

By Kevin Coy, Managing Editor

• BBC's Robert Peston Profile
• CNBC
• Bloomberg
• Fox Business Network
• Sky News Business Channel