CNBC Dying as Collateral Damage?

  • Posted by
  • on August 2nd, 2009

I am not sure if CNBC is just killing itself, or people are finally tired of the noise during the financial crisis and just leaving, but according to the latest Nielsen’s Ratings, their viewership is down 28 percent .

As I tweeted, this warms my cockles, Tyler’s as well:

The bloodbath at GE’s propaganda station has reached critical levels: according to Nielsen, CNBC has lost 28% of viewers year over year, and 24% in the 25-54 age group category. This is obviously a stunning failure in an environment where the top stories on any other medium are finance and economy related. Maybe if they were to actually report objective news, Jeff Immelt would not have to scratch his head in wonderment, pondering how to generate ad revenue and something even remotely resembling positive cash flow. Then again what are the poor anchors to do since the infamous Immelt memo made the rounds. At least GE stock is up: and for that GE, Barney Frank and Goldman Sachs, deserve a golf clap.

Oh, and Larry, with a 46% drop, you may want to reevaluate your content strategy.

For the last decade, America has muted America’s most watched business channel, but now it seems mute is too loud.

One reason may be that even muted, you can get better information in other places. Perhaps even muted, CNBC is too much of an abstraction.

The financial crisis may have been their peak moment.

One thing we ALL have known is that CNBC has always been a propoganda machine for GE. It’s not working anymore so maybe even the leadership has given up on the station and will finally reward us with a few market ‘bugs’ and some game shows or reruns of ‘Sanford and Son. That would be much tougher to compete against.

Even if only partly true, this AMAZING read in Salon.com of $GE silencing of Keith Olbermann will make you shake your head and help you understand that financial news delievered by a giant public media company is ridiculously biased.

Another big issue of collateral damage facing the likes of CNBC is their complete denial of financial technologies. The financial industry, for all it’s flaws has been one of the quickest and supportive industries of new technologies. CNBC has ignored/substituted their implemenation for breasts, opinions and more production bells and whistles. It’s not too late, but I am pretty confident they will continue to ignore the upstarts.

The most glaring example is the ticker. The rolling quotes along the bottom of your television screen mean zilch anymore.

Watching Stocktwits ‘Human Ticker’ for 10 minutes each day and checking on on the moving sectors and stocks will give you fast, detailed and more objective view of the stories moving the markets each day. I am happy to say that has taken our community 7 months.

I like the directions BOTH Stocktwits and CNBC are heading.

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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