CNBC - History

History

The CNBC channel had its beginnings around 1980 as the Satellite Program Network (SPN), showing a low-budget mix of old movies, instructional and entertainment programs. The channel later changed its name to Tempo Television. After initially signing a letter of intent to acquire Tempo, NBC eventually opted for a deal to lease the channel's transponder in June 1988. On this platform, and under the guidance of Tom Rogers, the channel was relaunched on April 17, 1989 as the Consumer News and Business Channel. NBC and Cablevision initially operated CNBC as a 50-50 joint venture, choosing to headquarter the channel in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

CNBC had considerable difficulty getting cable carriage at first, as many providers were skeptical of placing it alongside the longer-established Financial News Network. By the winter of 1990, CNBC was only in 17 million homes - less than half of FNN's potential reach – despite having the muscle of NBC standing behind it.

However, around this time, FNN encountered serious financial difficulties. After a protracted bidding war with a Dow Jones-Westinghouse Broadcasting consortium (the former's assets would be used to build a rival channel almost two decades later), CNBC acquired FNN for $154.3 million on May 21, 1991 and immediately merged the two operations, hiring around 60 of FNN's 300-strong workforce. The deal increased the distribution of the newly enlarged network to over 40 million homes. Cablevision sold its 50% stake to NBC upon completion of the deal. With the full name "Consumer News and Business Channel" dropped, the network's business programming was at first branded "CNBC/FNN," although this was phased out before the mid-1990s.

Under Rogers' leadership, CNBC began to grow during the 1990s, launching Asian and European versions of the channel in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1997, CNBC formed a strategic alliance with Dow Jones, including content sharing with Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal and the rebranding of the channel as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones". CNBC's international channels were then merged into a 50-50 joint venture with their Dow Jones-owned rivals, London-based EBN (European Business News) and Singapore-sited ABN (Asia Business News) in 1998, while ratings grew on the U.S. channel until the new millennium's dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

The new millennium also brought changes to the network in 2003, moving its world headquarters from Fort Lee to 900 Sylvan Avenue (Route 9W) in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which features completely digital video production and studios made by PDG Ltd of Beeston, Nottinghamshire and the FX Group of Ocoee, Florida.

NBC Universal reacquired full control of loss-making CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia from Dow Jones at the end of 2005. The licensing agreement between Dow and CNBC U.S. remained intact, however.

Today, CNBC provides business news programming from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk shows, investigative reports, documentaries, infomercials, and other programs during the evening and early morning. A rolling ticker provides real-time updates on share prices on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, as well as market indices, news summaries, and weather updates by NBC Meteorologists (prior to March 27, 2006, all of CNBC's weather reports were provided by AccuWeather). A rotating top band of the screen rotates provides real-time updates on index and commodity prices from world markets.

CNBC is the only NBC network whose abbreviation, while containing NBC, stands for another name: the Consumer News and Business Channel. The moniker was simply shortened to CNBC when the former was dropped.