CNBC celebrates 25th anniversary

CNBC anchor Bob Pisani writes about the business news network on the 25th anniversary of its launch, which was April 17, 1989.

Pisani writes, “A few months later, we survived our first big test: The purchase of our rival, FNN, in May 1991 for $154 million against a Westinghouse-Dow Jones consortium. That’s when we got three key players: Bill Griffeth, Ron Insana and Joe Kernen.

“And with guys like that–along with Sue Herera (who had already come over from FNN), David Faber, Mark Haines and, in 1995, Maria Bartiromo, we rode the Great Bull Market of 1982-2000 all the way to the top.

“It was a slow start. For the first five years, we had no ratings. I used to sneak into Peter Sturtevant’s office to see the ratings (they came–by fax–at 4 p.m. ET). Nothing. Hash marks.

“But it started changing in 1995 and into 1996. We started getting ratings. And as the volume at the NYSE and the NASDAQ began to climb, so did our ratings. It was almost a perfect match: Higher volume, higher ratings. Stock trading and us.

“It wasn’t just because of the excitement in stocks. We helped create that excitement. Before CNBC, Wall Street was a pretty opaque place. Stock brokers called clients and pitched stock-buying ideas. If you were lucky, if you were a big enough client, you got an analyst report.”

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