David Bauder of the Associated Press writes about how CNBC is building an audience by running documentaries such as its recent show about American Airlines as it prepars to debut a newsmagazine show in December. A new documentary will air on Wednesday.
Bauder wrote, “This week’s ‘Big Brother, Big Business’ details the wealth of public information about people that many don’t know exists.
“For example, Google has a record of every search made on its Web site, and who made it. Some new cars are equipped with boxes that record how fast a driver went. This information was used to convict a motorist of manslaughter in an accident caused by speeding, [Josh] Howard said. (Howard is CNBC’s vice president of specials and long-form programming.)
“Howard also is in charge of CNBC’s untitled newsmagazine, which is scheduled to debut Dec. 6. It’s modeled after HBO’s ‘Real Sports’ in having one fresh episode each month that is repeated multiple times.
“The newsmagazine will have three stories a month, a mixture of profiles, investigative pieces and features. That’s a comfortable format for Howard, who spent many years at CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ and was executive producer of the now-defunct ’60 Minutes II.”
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