NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. may be close to a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s cable division to carry a Fox News business channel that would rival General Electric's CNBC, according to a published report Monday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said the channel is slated to launch in the first half of 2006, having missed numerous previous deadlines. But if talks with Time Warner end, the launch could be pushed back again.

Time Warner (Research) is the parent company of CNN/Money.

Murdoch, chairman of News Corp. (Research), has promised a Fox News business cable channel for more than a year, hoping to surpass General Electric (Research)'s CNBC in the ratings, the report said.

But in contrast to Fox News' splashy launch nine years ago, News Corp. is treading more carefully this time, the paper said.

"You never pull the trigger until you know you can win," Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News, told an audience of media executives in New York in March, the Journal said.

In addition to launching the new channel on cable, the paper said News Corp. plans to make the network available on its own majority-owned DirecTV satellite service, which has 14 million subscribers.

The paper said Murdoch did not want to proceed with the channel's development until he had an agreement with Time Warner Cable because it controls the crucial Manhattan market, said people close to the situation. Manhattan is considered critical to the successful launch of a financial news channel, the report said.