Why a CNBC contributor quit the network

Jerry Bowyer, a paid contributor for CNBC who appeared primarily on “The Kudlow Report” in 2009 and 2010, writes for Forbes.com about why he left the show.

Bowyer is writing in the wake of reports that have the show’s ratings much lower.

Bowyer writes, “But everything changed when Fox News decided to launch a business channel. The stations started pushing to be the first one to get me on, and saying that if I were on one station early in the day, I couldn’t be on another station later that day. Eventually CNBC started to ask me for an exclusive relationship. I had friends on both sides of the divide and was hesitant to choose one over the other. But on the other hand, the invitations were becoming a real burden for me and it seemed like I was on TV almost every day. Eventually CNBC offered to pay me to appear as a guest on the show, but only if I were willing to stop going on Fox. I was unsure whether to take the deal. Larry called me one day and asked me personally to come on board and help him to fight the good fight among the liberals in the world of CNBC. I agreed. How could I not? The deal would cut my appearances down to two or three per week, allow me to fight for the principles I believed in, and pay me, to boot.

“And for a while it was great. The show was great. Larry is very smart, brilliant even, and knowledgeable in a multiplicity of disciplines. The show reflected that brilliance. His guests (excluding me) were of the highest caliber. And I was there to uphold basic principles of freedom and limited government which I love. But over time it became gradually more and more clear to me that my job was not to fight for certain principles, but to fight for Larry’s personal agenda. Although the show adopted ‘The Kudlow Creed,’ ‘I believe that free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity,’ that dogma was being supplanted by another more foundational creed: economic and market optimism. My job was to come on the air and make the bull case. Over and over Larry would say on the air, ‘I’m looking for the bull case.’ ‘I’m looking for the optimism case.’ ‘Goldilocks economy,’ and ‘Mustard seeds,’ etc. If somebody were not on board with that message, Peter Schiff or Michael Pento or the late Joe Battapaglia, my job was to body check them. Giant animated boxing gloves would appear when I did so. I was willing to do that. I have a combative personality, overly so. Also from 2002 to about the middle of 2007 I was very bullish, longer than I should have been. Later less so, and eventually very bearish.

“And therein lies the problem. Larry’s fundamental commitment was to optimism, not to free market capitalism, and with the sharp turn to statist solutions at the end of the Bush administration which continued on into Obama’s presidency I became less and less optimistic about the economy. Larry kept looking for silver linings in economic abominations like Cash for Clunkers.”

Read more here.