July #’s: CNBC’s Small But Steady Progress

Carl Quintanilla is criss-crossing the state of Florida for CNBC. He co-anchored Squawk Box from Punta Gorda this morning, as part of the network’s full day of hurricane preparedness coverage. Then he drove three hours to Little Havana in Miami to begin reporting on the city’s reaction to Castro’s hospitalization. He reported live on Closing Bell at 4pm, and he’ll be there for Squawk Box tomorrow.

CNBCers say Quintanilla’s quick shift shows how the cable biz channel is changing under new senior VP Jonathan Wald. In July, CNBC’s Business Day ratings were up 82 percent in the demo versus a year ago. The channel’s today day average (including weekends) was up 24 percent in the demo.

Of course, the numbers are still pretty low: The channel averaged 56,000 demo viewers for the month. And most of CNBC’s viewers are ignored by Nielsen. But every Business Day program from 5am to 7pm was up “double or triple digit percentages” versus July 2005 in both P2+ and P25-54, and execs like the trend…