Fortune Magazine’s Jessi Hempel writes a 2,500-word article about CNBC and its impact on viewers as the market fluctuates.
Hempel quotes CNBC President Mark Hoffman, who says, “We’re always looking for qualitative combat on the air. Most of these conversations live somewhere between fear on one end and greed on the other. One person wants to unload something, and another person wants to pick it up.”
A major focus of the article is also on the new competition for CNBC, Fox Business. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said in the article, “They’ll continue to get better, and we have to get better as well.”
The piece also delved deep into the numbers.
Some numbers related to the wealth of the CNBC viewership. “The network has a lock on the wealthiest audience in television. The typical CNBC viewer has a net worth of $2.7 million, with an average income of $156,000, according to Monroe Mendelsohn Research. Measuring only viewers watching from home, Nielsen puts the CNBC viewer’s income at $73,000, compared with an average cable viewer’s income of $48,000,” writes Hempel.
Others relate to positive figures for CNBC. Profits up 36% since Hoffman joined the network, ad dollars up 17% in 2007. With all the numbers there’s bound to be some confusion, however, like when Fast Money was reported to be “up 91% [in total viewers from first quarter 2007 to first quarter 2008].” That figure refers to the first-run of Fast Money, which was at 8pmET last year and is at 5pmET this year. Taken at a comparison of the 5pmET and 8pmET hours from last year, the show is up 8% in Total Viewers.
With 2,500 words, it looks like CNBC got the Fortune article it wanted.
> Update: An emailer writers, “Ailes was at CNBC from September 1993 to January 1996….. so it just under three years, not six as Fortune said.”