Categories: OLD Media Moves

How to fix CNBC

Jeffrey Miller of iStockAnalyst.com writes about improving CNBC‘s ratings given its recent performance where fewer viewers are watching its shows.

Miller writes, “NBC faced a tipping point several years ago.  They lost sight of the fact that most people are investors.  They are long the market.  That is their natural audience.  CNBC hosts do not need to be cheerleaders, but they do need to inform this audience.

“Most of the active emails and tweets they get come from traders, many of whom see this as a game between bulls and bears.  The coverage reflects this.  The CNBC team started saying things like ‘It is a bad day for those long the market.’

“CNBC needs to decide whether to compete for the active trader and fear market, getting ever more negative and political, or to get back to their foundation of helping regular investors.

“They are not helped by images of a car going off a cliff, or stories about Congress going on vacation.  Their viewers need to know what segments of the market are cheap.   How to succeed in the face of these threats.  How to rebuild retirement.

“I really hope that they get the message in time.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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