Five News Channels Seek European Business Viewers : Media: Market leaders CNN International and NBC Super Channel have so far contributed more prestige than cash to their parent companies.

European audiences now have yet another television news channel, European Business News. But whether the European market will ever generate enough profit to sustain even three of the five rival channels on air in 1995 is open to question, analysts said.

“It’s getting to the point where there could be too many players. . . . The market could get saturated very quickly,” said Warburg analyst Mark Beilby.

Besides EBN, owned by Dow Jones & Co. Inc., viewers already have a choice between Turner Broadcasting’s CNN International, NBC’s Super Channel, the British Broadcasting Corp.’s BBC World channel and the Euronews channel run by 11 European state broadcasters.

Newly launched BBC World and EBN are moving in, despite the less than stunning commercial performance of the market so far. At one end, Euronews has been an inveterate loss-maker since its launch in early 1993. At the other, even the two market leaders, CNN International and NBC Super Channel, have so far contributed more prestige than cash to their respective parent companies.

CNN International had 1993 revenue of just $93 million, including a large chunk of non-European income, while NBC Super Channel--which along with CNN does not publish European figures--says it might break even this year.

That is despite the already extensive European reach of the two channels, with Super Channel currently available to 65 million homes and CNN International in 45 million as of 1993.

What has attracted the newcomers, however, is the conviction that a period of explosive growth is awaiting European cross-border news broadcasting.

“Just ask yourself how big (domestic) CNN was 15 years ago--tiny,” said EBN managing director Michael Connor.

Connor said EBN, which is aimed at the “business person in everyone,” would be able to attract viewers across Europe with news from a perspective of the whole continent.

But it is the cross-border principle that has raised doubts ever since the bankruptcy in 1992 of the European Business Channel, the Zurich-based venture that was the first to attempt a pan-European business and political news service.

EBC, which started broadcasting English and German programs in 1988, eventually went off the air as advertising revenues consistently fell way short of costs, and as problems with its license concession discouraged potential investors.

Even those cross-border broadcasters that have survived are reserved in their attitude toward the European market.

“We are still very prudent about Europe. We’re going to take our time,” NBC Super Channel chairman Patrick Cox said at the recent launch of its European Money Wheel business program.

Cox said it was still unclear whether European business people--attractive bait for advertisers seeking an affluent market segment--were as receptive to such programming as their Asian counterparts.

Super Channel gives no advertising revenue breakdown, but its rival’s figures appear to bear this out.

CNN International’s 1993 global ad revenue was just $34 million, and the five-language Euronews managed a paltry 96,000 pounds (about $150,000 U.S.) in advertisements in the same year, according to media reports.

With such uncertainty, neither BBC World nor EBN--each of which is estimated to be working with budgets set at around $50 million--will say when they expect profits.

But if it takes too long, analysts say consolidation in some form will become inevitable.