Is CNBC Learning To Promote Its Talent?

A CNBC insider writes to TVNewser: “In NYC, there are two big billboards on the West Side Highway: One is for Fox News and the other is for CNBC. Fox has the faces of its stars on theirs — practically the entire team; but for MONTHS, all CNBC has had up there is some vague slogan on a blue background about how ‘Greed is bad but capitalism is great.’ Obviously, Fox promotes its people, while CNBC is promoting ‘the markets.'”

But last week CNBC had a big photo shoot with the new Squawk Box team at the network’s NJ headquarters. “They had all the talent in the CNBC entryway,” the insider says. “They had the photographer way up on a ladder so the talent were looking up at the camera, exactly how Fox has their ‘team photo’ shot. Here’s who was there: Mark Haines, Joe Kernen, David Faber, Charles Gasparino, Carl Quintanilla, Becky Quick, and Erin Burnett.

It was obvious to just about anyone who walked by the shoot that they were trying to imitate what Ailes had his own talent do. I don’t know whether it’ll end up on the CNBC billboard, but is this a watershed moment? That already CNBC is trying to imitate Fox before Fox begins its own business channel?”