April 17, 1989, 25 years ago today, CNBC went on the air. The president of NBC at the time Bob Wright introduced viewers to the Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), calling it, “the most significant programing effort NBC has ever undertaken outside of the network.”
At the time, CNBC was not the only game in town. FNN, the Financial News Network, had been on the air since 1980. But on May 21, 1991 the two channels merged. CNBC would own the business TV news space for a few years. Bloomberg TV launched in 1994 and CNNfn launched in 1995. CNNfn shuttered 9 years later. Fox Business Network began giving CNBC a run for its money in October, 2007.
All day the channel is airing Throwback Thursday clips from the last 25 years. Joe Kernen kicked it off this morning on “Squawk Box.” “25 years ago Google didn’t exist… 25 years ago the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union… 25 years ago, Jack Welch ran GE which owned NBC which started CNBC.”
MediabistroTV was at CNBC HQ yesterday for a “My First Big Break” interview with Jim Cramer. We’ll have that for you coming up in a few weeks on TVNewser. After the jump, a look back at 25 years of CNBC: