Dow Jones and NBC to Merge Foreign Business TV Units

Dow Jones & Co. and General Electric Co.’s NBC network on Tuesday said they will combine their Asian and European business TV units and join forces in the U.S. to reduce losses and share the costs of expanding globally.

The moves will allow the companies to cross-market brand names such as the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones business news services; the CNBC cable channel; and MSNBC, which is NBC and Microsoft Corp.’s Internet and cable venture.

Losses at Dow Jones’ and NBC’s television operations in Europe and Asia have been a drain on their resources. Analysts, though, said the appetite for business news around the world could make the channels profitable once the availability of digital television reduces their costs.

“This is going to allow them to combine a lot of operating expenses and perhaps make profitable what hasn’t been,” said John Morton, an independent analyst.

Both companies will take unspecified charges against 1997 fourth-quarter earnings to reorganize the overseas units. They also plan to cut about 200 jobs in Europe and Asia, including 150 at CNBC in Hong Kong.

The agreements are expected to be complete by early next year. Terms weren’t disclosed.

CNBC is annually losing about $25 million in Asia and $15 million in Europe, and Dow Jones is losing about $48 million from its television business, according to some estimates.

Expectations of a link-up have grown this year amid intensifying competition in the small and fast-growing business-news TV market. In Europe, for example, Dow Jones’s European Business News channel competes with Bloomberg Television, Reuters TV and Financial Times TV, as well as CNBC.

Under the agreement, Dow Jones will merge its Asia Business News and European Business News units with CNBC. The resulting channels will keep the CNBC names and reach 9 million households in Asia and 15 million in Europe.

In the U.S., CNBC will pay a licensing fee for the next 15 years for the rights to Dow Jones editorial content.

CNBC, which is available in 65 million households, will be designated as a “service of NBC and Dow Jones” during the day and early evening hours.

The agreement also joins two companies that just six years ago fought a bitter battle to buy the Financial News Network. NBC eventually paid $154 million in cash and assumed debt for the cable channel and merged it with CNBC.

Dow Jones’s shares fell 75 cents to close at $53.88 and GE gained $1.06 to $74.63, both in New York Stock Exchange trading.