CNBC slides as viewers get crunched

M

Mup

From the UK's observer..

Courting constant controversy for its evangelism of financial speculation, CNBC has never had so much attention. It devotes 16 hours of live coverage every day to the markets and has analysed every detail of the credit crunch. So why are its ratings slumping?

According to figures supplied to the Observer by Nielsen, the television tracking agency, the average number of Americans watching CNBC at any point on the 24-hour clock was 188,000 last month, a drop of 11% on last year. A more detailed breakdown leaked on the internet reveals a 28% plunge in CNBC viewers during the core business day, between 5am and 7pm.

Executives at the network say the numbers are a return to "normality" after a record spike at the height of last year's financial drama. Ratings in Europe and Asia are holding up more impressively, hits on the network's website are up 150% year-on-year and page views via mobile phones are rocketing.

But in the core US television sphere, a fall-back to 2007 levels means CNBC has kept none of the new fans who tuned in during the crunch. The channel is slinking back to a dark corner of the cable spectrum. Its smaller rivals, Bloomberg Television and Fox Business, have shown little sign of breaking into the mainstream, so the epochal stage of the crisis, which once seemed set to transform awareness of finance, is becoming a memory.

The drop in ratings is irresistible fodder for CNBC's critics. The channel is loathed by many on the left for its shouty style and unrestrained embrace of Ayn Rand-style capitalism. It apes the machismo of the trading floor and in gaps between genuinely informative reportage, its presenters jostle to out-opinion each other. Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Centre's Project for Excellence in Journalism, says many of its shows are built around "punditry and personality" rather than any genuine attempt to report business news.

CNBC has had an accident-prone 2009. Top news executive Jonathan Wald and a popular anchorman, Dylan Ratigan, left after failing to agree new contracts. And a reporter, Rick Santelli, got carried away with an on-air rant in February, whipping traders around him into a frenzy at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by blasting Barack Obama's economic stimulus package for subsidising "losers' mortgages". White House press secretary Robert Gibbs urged him to switch to decaffeinated coffee .....
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/09/television-cnbc-viewing-figures

More US airtime for Amanda Dury then ?? :D
 
No doubt the drop in the market hurts, but also the constant fighting. Everyone is either flat out arguing or whining, it is very difficult to watch. How is the European side with bickering? Amanda would help for sure. :)
 
CNBC is tired. Their whole approach goes back to the days when trading was done largely on the floor of the NYSE. What is the point of having reporters on the floor of the NYSE? Nothing important is happening there.

Their premarket show is tedious and boring. They frequently have guests who actually have a lot to say that would be interesting, but they're lucky to get 2 minutes of airtime. Instead we get the inane ramblings of a couple of guys who have never traded a stock in their lives. But they are journalists, so they have to be in charge.

Cramer's show would be great if it was 15 minutes long and he was forced to sit still. What adult wants to watch Crame run around in clownshoes popping balloons and pushing buttons? Lame.

Fast Money was a great show when it started, but now it is virtually unwatchable.

You have to wonder who selects the on air talent for CNBC. Maybe the same people who thought Katie Couric would be great as the evening news anchor. How is Dennis Kneale still on the air? How did he ever get on the air? I mean really, this is not that hard. I feel for Macke. Who wouldn't go nuts listening to Kneale?
 
I agree about fast money

Show was great in the beginning with najarian, bolling, and the risk guy from Pali capital (forgot his name)
Those guys had specific strategies and trades they were doing.

Now the only trader is najarian who constantly looks for slight edges in the near term

the girl keeps talking bout shorting banks and long their preffereds (MUST BE GETTING SLAUGHTERED IN THAT TRADE)

the other dude with the super thin plucked eyebrows just talks about going Long Oil and buying every stock that is up 50-100% on every 10c pull back

I remember he HYPED UP TBT at 58...not even understanding that these double leveraged plays are KILLERS...it went straight to 50 from his call in about 5 days

the one other dude just goes long Emerging markets

Macke is just an absolute LUNATIC who flip flopped ALL HIS TRADES.. that guy bought more tops and shorted more bottoms then everyone BESIDES CRAMER
 
CNBC is built for the novice.

The novice, however, does not have the attention span for the subject that CNBC is covering, no matter how many sound effects Jim Cramer tries to put in the show.

Plz remember that the longest running show in the history of television is currently the Simpsons.

What more need be said?:)
 
Has to be some cataclysmic event to end CNBC before we can move on. Scandal? Blowup?

I'm still waiting for Crames to get his. That will be some day. And it will be a turning point of sorts. It can't go on like this.
 
Quote from Mup:

From the UK's observer..



Continued....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/09/television-cnbc-viewing-figures

I appreciate this your post.

It says a lot that one has to go across the pond to find out the truth about CNBC.

I spent my entire trading life trading with the television turned to CNBC, most of the time with the sound off.

But I could no longer take the BARRY cheerleading squad.

I turned off the television a few weeks ago, and I have missed NOTHING.

I did turn it on Friday just to see what if anything was cooking with the jobs report.

There on my screen was David Gregory plugging Meet the Press and talking politics.

To Gregory's credit he did appear SOBER, in case you do not remember this Bozo called into to Imus in the morning with a buzz on.

CNBC's problem is NBC's problem and that is they do not want to cover news, that would take journalists.

They want to cover celebrity, and that gets them into politics.

A couple of weeks back I happened to see the Today show where Erin Burnett was a host and doing an interview on FOOD.

It was PATHETIC. I do not think she knows a great deal about much, other than calling the President who did NOT have monkey ears, a monkey.

But she clearly was uncomfortable doing shallow, superficial foodie stuff of which is Al Roker is a master.


Television is much more the VAST WASTELAND that Newton Minnow called it some fifty years ago.

Instead of CNBC, I have a screen turned to Marketwatch, and to their credit they a fresh bug on the futures. The futures bug for indices and oil was the only thing that I was getting from CNBC as I do not trade the futures and do not get real time futures quotes.

The question I was thinking about, was last fall when the auto CEOS flew to Washington the first time in private jets, every CNBC employeed talking head was saying what a mistake that was.

But I am wondering if any these GUBMINT loving bozoes are saying what a case study in hypocrisy it is for the GUBMINTto be expanding its jet service by buying three jets for half a billion to fly the lying thieving politicians all over the country.

Weren't these elected boys and girls doing all the screaming when the CEO's flew private?

CNBC is no more for me after 15 years, and I ain't a missing it.
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Quote from Illum:

How is the European side with bickering? Amanda would help for sure. :)
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Generally CNBC Europe / Asia is a bit more reserved than their US conterparts......
 
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