CNBC cashes in on the market

Fortune magazine writer Jessi Hempel writes in the latest issue about what makes business news cable channel CNBC so successful.

Hempel writes, “At CNBC, broadcast veteran Mark Hoffman has added edge and emotion to a network that was heavily criticized in the run-up to the tech bust for its rah-rah business take on the news. Hoffman was in fact the news director there before leaving to run a local NBC station. When he returned as president in 2005, ratings had hit their lowest level since the channel launched in 1989, and primetime was given over to reruns of the Conan O’Brien Show, as well as fare like tennis pro John McEnroe’s talk show, which sometimes earned a Nielsen rating of 0.0.

“Hoffman, who came up with a four-part mantra for the channel — fast, accurate, actionable, unbiased — began his CNBC tenure wandering the newsroom floor, checking in with reporters directly. ‘Mark is remarkable because he says, ‘Tell me what you need.’ And we get it,’ says Jim Cramer of Mad Money.

“Hoffman describes CNBC’s formula for investotainment this way: ‘We’re always looking for qualitative combat on the air. Most of these conversations live somewhere between fear on one end and greed on the other. One person wants to unload something, and another person wants to pick it up.’ His boss Jeff Zucker, in charge of NBC Universal, credits him with changing both the management team behind the scenes and the on-air look of the network.”

Read more here.