• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 4, 2007

As big a brand as Fox is, even Rupert Murdoch knows the Wall Street Journal is a media brand on a whole ‘nother level.

He told the New York Times if his offer to buy the Journal is accepted, he’d like to figure out how to work the name into his soon-to-be launched Fox Business Channel. All that would give his new big network an even greater cachet.

In this regard, you now need to compliment NBC for CNBC, for being able to build a financial news brand almost out of thin air. The name appeal of its predecessor, the Financial News Network, didn’t help CNBC much.

For News Corp, using the Journal’s name would be, perhaps, part of a continuing trend not to Fox-ify everything. That big social network business over at News Corp. is not called MyFox or FoxSpace.  As a matter of fact, it has worked the other way around. News Corp’s year-old, and struggling, broadcast network is called MyNetworkTV, riffing off MySpace.

No doubt Murdoch is doing everything to win the hearts of the Journal’s owners, the Bancrofts, as well as those crusty reporters and editors sweating bullets over what Murdoch’s past history might bring to the Journal.  Letting the New York Times in for a nice little interview yesterday is always good for the publicity cause.

This wouldn’t be the Journal’s first foray into TV. It already has its name attached to a TV show, “The Wall Street Journal Report,” a syndicated recap of the week in business. But a big cable network would mean a lot more. This prized business publishing brand would sit atop a highly marketed cable network.

Murdoch also said he would set up an independent board for the Journal that separates business deals from editorial efforts. He has done this in the U.K. with The Times and Sunday Times, starting in 1981.

This would also go a long way to pushing a new cable channel -- one that’ll tell the world it can even do even-handed, nonpartisan financial reporting on News Corp, just as CNBC does with General Electric.

Still, Murdoch isn’t above using his own airwaves to sell. Minutes after the announcement of his offer, Murdoch made an appearance on the only U.S. TV news channel that really matters to him right now: the Fox News Channel.

The question on everyone’s mind: Will we have edgy Bill O’Reilly-like commentators fronting the Wall Street Journal Network, and what will that mean to the Journal brand?