CNBC Twilight Zone
I accidentally flipped to CNBC today. It is like watching an episode of the Twilight Zone. How does Maria Bartiroma, 5 years after the bubble burst, with a straight face ask “analysts” for opinions on stocks? It is strangely bizarre. After seeing this odd TV spectacle, I decided to search Google to see if there were stories on CNBC ratings. From Bill Mann I found some fun insight that quickly backed my gut impression of CNBC version 2005. It doesn’t appear people watch:
“The past two years have been pretty positive for the markets. If CNBC’s ratings were tightly correlated with market direction, one would think that the ratings would have rebounded in sympathy, rather than continue to tank. CNBC was perfectly constructed to be the voice of record while the bull market raced ever higher. Many people compared CNBC with Disney’s (NYSE: DIS) sports broadcasting juggernaut, ESPN. But viewing sports and viewing stocks aren’t even comparable: The cost of rooting for the wrong “team” on CNBC is far, far higher. What CNBC was not constructed to do was offer up much in the way of useful, contrary information. It’s as if the network’s programming manager goes daily up onto the roof, checks the prevailing winds, and constructs the program to respond. The problem, of course, is that following the prevailing winds doesn’t help the viewers who come to the station to hear something useful. That’s overstating it. But the executive shuffle and the comments among NBC brass, along with the decline in viewership, however it is properly defined, are fairly conclusive pieces of data showing that CNBC in its present form is struggling…CNBC needs to matter. The network has the same talking heads on now that it did in the late 1990s. In the ’90s, they hyped dot-coms, in 2000 optical networking, and so on to today, when commodity and energy companies can do no wrong. The result is that CNBC viewers, if they count on you for information, are doing nothing but chasing the thing that has just happened. That’s exhausting, it’s counterproductive, and in the long run, it’s expensive. I’ve said this for years: Who cares what analyst on Wall Street raised or lowered guidance?”
