While the U.S. network is 20 years old and it’s had channels covering in Europe and Asia since 1998, the CNBC brand is now seen on affiliates in countries including Poland, Italy and the UAE. Brian Stelter writes about it in today’s NYTimes.
The local channels are essentially licensees of the CNBC brand. In exchange for a license fee, the channels receive proprietary software, graphics packages, and access to the company’s global infrastructure. Most visibly, they receive CNBC’s peacock logo. But the programming is predominantly their own. (The Polish channel shows American comedies and dramas in prime time.)
In some cases, as in Italy, NBC Universal owns a stake in the affiliates; in other cases, they are wholly owned by private companies. A CNBC spokesman said the company does not discuss details of the arrangements.
AdvertisementThe affiliates make it a “truly global network,” said Steven F. Hall, the chief executive of the five-year-old CNBC Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite channel based in Dubai.