CNBC

This article is about CNBC, the business news channel. For other uses see CNBC (disambiguation).

CNBC U.S.
CNBC logo derived from the 1986 NBC Peacock logo CNBC logo derived from the 1986 NBC Peacock logo
Launch	April 17, 1989
Audience share*	79% at working places [1]
Owner	NBC Universal
Web address	CNBC.com on MSN
*U.S. cable TV during business days, June 2003
Availability
Terrestrial analogue	Not applicable
Terrestrial digital	Not applicable
TV satellite	AMC-10 (formerly Satcom C4), Transponder 13, C-band Digital, Channel 101
Satellite TV	DirectTV U.S. Channel 355 Dish Network U.S. Channel 208
Cable TV	Numerous, variable channel number
Satellite radio	Sirius Channel 130
	XM Channel 127

CNBC (until 1991 the Consumer News and Business Channel) is a group of cable and satellite television Business news channels from the U.S., owned and operated by NBC Universal. CNBC and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets.

CNBC in the U.S.

The original CNBC channel was launched in Fort Lee, New Jersey, on April 17, 1989. It merged in 1991 with the Financial News Network (FNN), and the name "Consumer News and Business Channel" was dropped. Both Sue Herera and Ted David are original anchors at CNBC and remain on the air there, as does Scott Cohn, an original correspondent. Some reporters from FNN joined CNBC, like Ron Insana, Bill Griffeth, Joe Kernen and Jerry Cobb. At first, the network's business programming was branded "CNBC/FNN," but that was dropped in the mid-90's.

CNBC was characterized by relatively high television ratings until the dot-com bubble burst in 1999/2000.

Today, CNBC provides business news programming from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk shows, investigative reports, infomercials, and other programs during the evening and early morning. A rolling ticker provides real-time updates on share prices on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, as well as and market indices, news summaries, and weather updates by NBC Weather Plus (prior to March 27, 2006, weather updates were provided by AccuWeather). Prior to December 2005, a stack in the corner of the screen displayed index and commodity prices, however this information has now been moved to a bar along the top of the screen.

In 2003, CNBC moved from Fort Lee to a new headquarters four miles north in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (Google map). The new facility uses completely digital video production.

The CNBC Global Headquarters studio was made by PDG Ltd of Beeston, Nottinghamshire and by the FX Group of Ocoee, Florida. The music used from October 2003 to December 2005 was produced by 615 Music of Nashville, Tennessee. Willie Wilcox composed the themes for The Big Idea, Mad Money, Conversations with Michael Eisner and currently Fast Money. CNBC's main voice-over announcer is Jim Birdsall, who has also worked for NFL Films.

On December 19, 2005, CNBC unveiled a new on-air look, replacing that which had been used since October 2003. This included a new look for all the graphics, new logos for all business day programs, and the aforementioned move of the information formerly contained in the stack to the top of the screen. The ticker now shows full company names instead of just ticker symbols.

On June 12, 2006, CNBC brought back its "First in Business Worldwide" tagline, which was originally used in the late 1990s.

Programming

CNBC provides a variety of programs throughout the business day presenting reports on U.S. businesses, updates of stock market indices and commodities prices, interviews with CEOs and business leaders, and commentary from many investment professionals. The following is the usual "business day" (term used by CNBC hosts and announcers) lineup (as of March 2006, all times Eastern):

ET	Program	Hosts	Description	Corresponding programs
				CNBC Europe	CNBC Asia
4am-6am	Worldwide Exchange File:Worldwideexchange.jpg	Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Ross Westgate, Christine Tan	first word on movements on futures exchanges and trading in Europe and Asia	Today's Business
6am-9am	Squawk Box File:SQ BOX CHROME SMALL copy.jpg	Joe Kernen, Carl Quintanilla, Rebecca Quick, Charles Gasparino	provides a mix of business news and commentary	Squawk Box Europe	Asia Squawk Box
9am-10am	Squawk on the Street File:Squawkonthestreet.jpg	Mark Haines, Erin Burnett, David Faber	broadcasts live from above the New York Stock Exchange
10am-12pm	Morning Call	Liz Claman, Mark Haines, Carl Quintanilla, Joe Kernen	focuses on real-time market coverage	Worldwide Exchange	Asia Market Watch
12pm-2pm	Power Lunch File:Powerlunch.jpg	Bill Griffeth, Sue Herera	examines the companies, people, and trends influencing Wall Street	Power Lunch Europe
2pm-3pm	Street Signs File:Streetsigns.jpg	Erin Burnett	focuses on trends, world events affecting stock markets, and real-time market coverage
3pm-5pm	Closing Bell File:Closingbell.jpg	Maria Bartiromo, co-hosted with Dylan Ratigan for the 3pm hour (Ratigan live from NYSE)	covers the close of the trading day and real-time market coverage	European Closing Bell	Worldwide Exchange
5pm-6pm	Kudlow & Company File:Kudlowandcompany.jpg	Lawrence Kudlow	provides market and economic commentary and interviews
6pm-7pm	Mad Money File:Madmoney.jpg	James Cramer	a fast-paced show offering stock advice to callers
7pm-8pm	On the Money File:Onthemoney.jpg	Dylan Ratigan	recap of all the days business news	Europe Tonight

CNBC has experimented with non-business programming during primetime hours, but many of these shows have been unsuccessful and cancelled. CNBC's primetime lineup features The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch and the channel has rebroadcasted several NBC programs, including Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Deal or No Deal, and The Apprentice. Prior to April 20, 2006, the programs in the primetime hours are showed with the aforementioned scroll with news headlines and weather updates at the bottom of the screen. Late Night with Conan O'Brien was replaced with the new program On The Money. Paid Programs are typically aired from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

On June 8, 2006 it was announced that CNBC would re-air On the Money in primetime (11pm ET). CNBC will also implement a "checkerboard" programming schedule for its 8pm ET timeslot. Mondays will be CNBC Prime: A repackaging of the best of the day's taped segments; Tuesday has CNBC Documentaries; Wednesday will feature Fast Money: A fast-paced hour with Wall Street's top traders; Town Hall a live audience program exploring single money oriented topics will air on Thrusdays; On Friday Heads Up Poker will air.

CNBC's biggest hit today is Mad Money. Hosted by money manager Jim Cramer, the hour-long show gives stock advice to viewers who call in at 1-800-743-CNBC(2622). The show also has a popular segment called "The Lightning Round".

Other special or weekend programming includes CNBC on Assignment (for example, The Age of Wal-Mart), Cover to Cover, The Suze Orman Show, Outside the Box, The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo, and Tim Russert. CNBC normally carries programming from CNBC World in the early morning hours on US holidays.

Past shows and anchors

Among the shows that have been canceled are:

• America Now with Lawrence Kudlow and James Cramer
• Bullseye
• Business Center with Ron Insana and Sue Herera
• Capital Report
• Cnet News.com
• Dennis Miller
• The Edge
• Hardball with Chris Matthews (moved to MSNBC)
• Kudlow & Cramer
• Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street (ended its run in 2004 at Louis Rukeyser's request)
• Market Wrap (replaced by Closing Bell and Kudlow & Cramer)
• McEnroe
• Morning Exchange with Liz Claman (replaced by Market Watch with Maria Bartiromo and then by Morning Call)
• National Geographic Explorer
• Rivera Live with Geraldo Rivera
• The News with Brian Williams (renamed The News on CNBC later on)
• Today's Business (replaced by Wake-Up Call)
• Topic [A] with Tina Brown
• Ushuaia
• Wake Up Call (replaced by Worldwide Exchange)
• World Business Reports
• Consumer News
• Smart Money
• Media Biz
• Business Wrapup
• Business View
• Media Beat
• Business Insiders
• Your Portfolio
• Money Talk
• Money Club
• Money Tonight
• Money Wheel
• Steals and Deals
• Great Stuff
• Bull Sessions
• Opinions
• Open Exchange
• Upfront Tonight
• McLaughlin
• Real Story
• Real Life
• Real Personal
• Dick Cavett
• Tom Snyder
• Equal Time
• America After Hours
• Politics with Chris Matthews
• Charles Grodin
• Checkpoint CNBC

Former anchors and reporters include Bonnie Behrend, Neil Cavuto, Phil Donahue, Morton Downey, Jr., Charles Grodin, Steve Frank, Cory Johnson, John McLaughlin, Leslie LaRoche, Al Roker, John Seigenthaler, Nanette Hansen and Tom Snyder, among others.

Ratings

CNBC has had a difficult time as of late attracting viewers, although viewership is significantly up from the 2005 bottom. There is a fairly clear correlation between the markets' performance and CNBC's viewership.

During the late 90's and early 2000's, CNBC's ratings were exploding along with the market. In fact, CNBC often beat CNN during the daytime. However, the market took a tumble in 2001 and along went CNBC's ratings. In 2001, daytime viewership at the network peaked at 330,000, right before the peak of the Nasdaq. The network's ratings steadily fell quarter after quarter, year after year, until bottoming in Q2 2005, with an average viewership of 134,000 during the day. From the bottom, the network, along with the markets, have rebounded significantly -- daytime viewership now stands at 211,000 (as of mid-2006). Even though that pales in comparison to what Fox News and CNN draw in today, it is still a very healthy 57% increase in viewership within the span of 1 year. [2]

While daytime viewership has held up relatively well, primetime viewership is still relatively weak and the network continues to try and rejuvinate their primetime lineup. Their newest attempt to attract more viewers is by introducing a "Checkerboard" programming approach. The network will put in various programming throughout the week that would interest viewers, including documentaries, town-hall style discussions and more. [3]

It is important to note that much of CNBC's viewership, particularly during the daytime, is done "out of home", something that traditionally is not measured by Nielsen ratings. As a result, it would be fair to say that the network's true viewership is considerably higher than what is reported.

CNBC international channels

CNBC has operated international versions of its channel since 1995, when CNBC Asia originally launched. CNBC Europe followed in 1996. On December 9, 1997, Dow Jones & Company and NBC announced the merger of their international business news channels. This resulted in a merger of CNBC Europe with Dow Jones' European Business News, and likewise of CNBC Asia with Asia Business News. From then (until January 2006) the international CNBC services carried the tagline "A Service of NBC (Universal) and Dow Jones" (or depending on other local partners, a variation of this tagline). Correspondents from Dow Jones Newswires contribute to the channels. CNBC Europe is headquartered in London, and CNBC Asia is headquartered in Singapore.

Besides CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia, the network also operates a number of local business news channels in association with other companies. These channels include Class CNBC in Italy, CNBC-e in Turkey, CNBC Arabiya in the UAE, Nikkei CNBC in Japan, CNBC-TV18 and CNBC Awaaz in India, and CNBC Pakistan in Pakistan.

CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia are rebranded in some parts of the world with tickers containing local financial information. This includes CNBC Nordic, CNBC Singapore, CNBC Hong Kong and CNBC Australia.

In North America, CNBC World airs business programming from CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia, as well as weekly magazine programs provided by CNBC-TV18 and the United Nations.

In Latin America, CNBC Latin America retransmits live programs from CNBC and CNBC World.

In Canada, CNBC can be seen with most of the programming identical to the US counterpart. However, due to Canadian programming rights, shows such as the Olympic Games, Deal Or No Deal, The Apprentice and Heads Up Poker are replaced by CNBC World programming. This had the making of a major problem, as a highlight episode of The Apprentice 5 that aired April 23, 2006, was assumed to not be available anywhere for Canadians due to these blackouts. While the first airing at 9:00pm ET was blacked out, the second airing at 12:00am ET was shown. Blackouts on episodes that originally air on NBC and Global are likely to continue.

On 31 December 2005, the sale by Dow Jones of its interests in the international CNBC channels took effect. From 1 January 2006, the "A Service of NBC Universal and Dow Jones" tagline was removed from the international CNBC channels, in line with this.

CNBC Graphics

CNBC is well known today for it's flashy and somewhat "over-the-top" graphics package, complete with accompying animations and animation-sounds. Previous graphics packages put together by the network since the early 90's have gradually increased the "wow" factor -- likely in order to catch a casual viewer's eye, as cable news competition has increased dramatically since the late 80's (when the network was launched).

• Date: Unknown
  Date: Unknown
• Date: Unknown
  Date: Unknown
• Date: 2002 to October 2003
  Date: 2002 to October 2003
• Date: October 2003 to December 2005
  Date: October 2003 to December 2005
• Date: December 19th, 2005 - Present
  Date: December 19th, 2005 - Present

How to read the screen

File:CNBC NEWgraphics3.jpg

Typical on-air screen appearance during the business day

The top band, which stays on-screen during the business day (4am ET to 6pm ET), will give viewers a real-time snapshot of the general stock market (Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indicies, along with the DJ Utilities, DJ Transports and NYSE indicies), international markets and futures (between 4am ET and 9:30am ET only), currencies, bond prices/yields and commodities. This data stays on for 5-7 seconds, before refreshing to the new set of data.

The bottom two lines, called the ticker, gives viewers real-time NYSE quotes (on the top band) and Nasdaq/AMEX quotes (bottom band) throughout the trading day. A commodity summary is shown on the top band during market hours (every 10 minutes at 0:01, 0:11, 0:21, 0:31, 0:41, 0:51 past the hour), along with a market summary (which is shown every 20 minutes at 0:01, 0:21, 0:41 past the hour). A Nasdaq/AMEX market summary is shown on the bottom band every 20 minutes at 0:06, 0:26, 0:46 past the hour.

Before and after-market hours (8:00am ET - 9:30am ET and 4:00pm ET - 6:30pm ET respectively), the ticker will give viewers extended hours trading quotes (after-hours quotes are symbolized with yellow text). Between the hours of 5:00am ET - 8:00am ET and 6:30pm ET - 8:00pm ET, viewers are shown an alphabetical recap of the closing prices of S&P 500 stocks on the top band, while latest news headlines are displayed on the bottom band.

Above the ticker, the left-hand side graphic will give you the ident for the specific program that is currently on-air (i.e. "MORNING CALL"). The middle block gives viewers either a caption of the topic being discussed (i.e. "HOLIDAY HOME STRETCH", as shown left), or many times, a "CNBC Alert" chimes in, giving viewers breaking news (i.e. "XYZ COMPANY'S CEO RESIGNS") or pertinent market information (i.e. "DOW DROPS -2%"). For bigger breaking news items, a red "Breaking News" band will appear.

For more details on CNBC's ticker, see the Wikipedia article CNBC Ticker.

List of CNBC channels

• CNBC US
• CNBC Europe
  • Class CNBC - Italy
  • CNBC-e - Turkey
  • CNBC Arabiya - Arabic countries
  • CNBC Nordic - Scandinavia
• CNBC Asia
  • Nikkei CNBC - Japan
  • CNBC-TV18 - India
  • CNBC Awaaz - India
  • CNBC Pakistan - Pakistan
  • CNBC Australia
  • CNBC Hong Kong
  • CNBC Singapore
• CNBC Latin America
• CNBC World

External links

• NBC Cable Networks - NBCCableinfo.com - CNBC
• CNBC US
  • CNBC - Weekly U.S. TV Schedule
  • CNBC Anchors and Reporters
  • Photos of the New Jersey CNBC facility
• CNBC Europe
• CNBC Asia
• CNBC TV18 India
• Class CNBC
• CNBC-e Turkey
• CNBC Arabiya
• Nikkei CNBC
• CNBC Pakistan