So, is he crazy, or crazy like a Fox?

First, remember that no one paid any attention to the Fox News Channel when it started only a few years ago, and it's now the number one cable news channel, trouncing all other cable news contenders as a whole, and with nearly all of its individual programs.

Second, Murdoch has something no one else has: Roger Ailes.

Ailes designed and built CNBC before he went to Fox in 1995. So, not only does Murdoch have someone on his team with insider info on the opposition, he has the guy who seems to know what Americans want to see on TV.

According to Businessweek, Murdoch also thinks there is a "pot of money" to be made with a financial news channel. He knows that CNBC is "low-cost programming," and that it has a high net worth audience for which advertisers are willing to pay a premium to get their products in front of, thus allowing GE to rake in the money even with low ratings - $250 million in profits a year, to be exact, according to the New York Daily News.

Of course, Ailes will probably want to cater to mainstream America with the new venture, as he does with the Fox News Channel, and will probably include the breaking news/opinion/celebrity mix of FNC as well.

In fact, Fox already has the highest rated business shows on TV with its "business block" on Saturday, and its nightly "Your World" program, all produced under a former a CNBCer and now Fox business managing editor, the fashionable, funny and facile Neil Cavuto.

Even if Fox doesn't transfer these show to a new channel, a Fox financial channel could successful right out of the gate because of the giant kink in CNBC's armor - prime time.

CNBC's shows in prime time are not doing well - John McEnroe's show with an average of 75,000 viewers a night was replaced by Donny Deutsch's show with an average of 90,000, fo example, neither of which even show up in the Nielsen ratings - and are not at all related to business and financial news.

The three lingering questions are 1) Can Fox get its new channel into enough homes and businesses to make it a success - CNNfn was in 1/3 the homes CNBC reaches - 2) Is there a big enough audience to support two competing business channels, and 3) Will those viewers who keep CNBC on all day switch to Fox?

Murdoch's control of DirecTV might be the answer to question 1, as he has the weight of 13.5 million subscribers to throw around with the big cable outfits who would like their own programming on satellite.

Possibly soon-to-be-outgoing president of CNBC Pamela Thomas-Graham (the Daily News reports that NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker wants to replace her) had this to say about question 2: "If you look at the example of CNNfn, you may have the answer."

And one TV executive told Businessweek regarding number 3: "Rupert doesn't get into the game to be No. 2 or No. 3."

There's no business like show business.

Editor's note: