Hoffman: CNBC is built for balance

Satish John of Mint, a business newspaper in India, interviewed CNBC president Mark Hoffman during his visit to the country to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of its channel in India.

Here is an excerpt:

On stock recommendations, there have been some issues at times faced by business media in general. At the height of the boom everything looks good, but when the financial crisis happened many investors were unhappy at having been caught unawares. Jim Cramer’s ‘Mad Money’ show provoked many spoofs when markets tanked. What is your view on this?

CNBC is built for balance. I’ll give you a US example since you said it. Five years ago, on CNBC US, 40 people were interviewed a day. Today, it is 140 people a day. CNBC Europe, Asia and US interviews over 850 people around the world.

If you add CNBC-TV18, SBS-CNBC and our channels in South Africa, Middle East (West Asia) and Japan, we are talking about hundreds more. The reason for that is to get the best minds on every relevant topic and let the inherent conflict play out qualitatively on air.

At its essence, CNBC is trying to explain the basic concepts of business. Somebody wants to buy and somebody else wants to sell. We are focused on the concept that in markets there is fear on the one end and there is greed on the other end. Who’ll tip the balance? That task of relaying every important and relevant opinion and every essential opinion and let it play out in real time on our various platforms around the world is how we ensure the balance.

Read more here.