Ready for the Fox Dow Jones Industrials?

The most obvious beneficiary: The new business TV channel, Fox Business Network.

By a happy coincidence, News Corp. announced just last week that the new channel will be launched in October. It's going to be a major investment for Fox, and Murdoch doubtless has big plans for it.

Renaming the Dow Jones index "the Fox Dow Jones Index," say, would put his new cable channel on the map in an instant. How better?

It would ensure that every competing news outlet around the world would give Fox a plug at least once a day, every day, when they report the market close from Wall Street.

CNBC and CNN can try using the S&P 500 index instead, but it doesn't carry the same clout. People want to know what happened to "the Dow."

Or ... "the Fox."

Don't laugh. Who thought Candlestick Park in San Francisco would be known as US Cellular Field? Or that Marshall Field's in Chicago would become Macy's? People get used to new names pretty quickly.

And this would be classic Murdoch. He is the master of cross-promotion, ruthlessly using each arm of his media network to boost the others.

News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher declined to comment.

OK, it's a stretch. It would certainly be a bold move. It might even be an outrageous one. There is no evidence to date of any plans to rename the index.

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