CNBC zigs while others zag

Noam Cohen of the New York Times wrote Monday about the new CNBC show “Business Nation,” which premiers later this week, and points out that it’s not what others are doing.

Cohen wrote, “As cable news becomes increasingly combative and opinionated, the financial news network CNBC is pushing in the other direction, introducing an hourlong monthly newsmagazine, ‘Business Nation.'”

Later, he added, “The staff for ‘Business Nation’ includes six producers, three associate producers and support people, he said. Mr. Howard described this as roughly proportional to what he worked with at CBS, considering that the CNBC program is a monthly show, rather than weekly.

“The program’s format reflects the ties to ’60 Minutes’ among the creative team that put it together, with three segments in the hour; a mixture of hard news, features and interviews; and an essay at the end.

“In a departure, the concluding essay will not be delivered by some curmudgeonly figure or by a tycoon musing about the proxy statements cluttering his mailbox. ‘You can’t replace Andy Rooney,’ Mr. Weitzner remarked. ‘We never thought about an Andy Rooney replacement.'”

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