Asia Squawk Box - History

History

Asia Squawk Box debuted in February 1998 at 8.00 Singapore time in February 1998 when CNBC Asia merged with Asia Business News and it was presented by former CNBC Asia Morning Call personalities Rico Hizon (now with BBC World) and Geoff Cutmore (currently the main presenter of the show's counterpart in Europe, Squawk Box Europe). Bernard Lo and Cecilia Zecha came in to eventually replace Cutmore and Hizon respectively. In October 1998, Asia Squawk Box was extended to 90 minutes and in late 1999, the show started at 7.30 SIN time. In April 2000, Asia Squawk Box moved to 7.00 SIN time. Christine Tan assumed anchoring duties in July 2000 and on 30 October 2000, the show was extended to 2 hours with the last half-hour being named Squawk Plus.

In July 2001, Asia Squawk Box aired for a full 3 hours like its US counterpart from 7am to 10am SIN time. Around this time, Steven Engel was added to the team as a stockwatcher. In late 2002, Bettina Chua took over as anchor as Christine Tan was reassigned to the evening hours. As a result of the cancellation of Asia Wake Up Call, "ASB" moved to the 6 to 9am SIN time timeslot.

In April 2005, Martin Soong assumed the anchoring duties for the program after Chua's departure from the network.

Since 2006, the Asian version of Squawk Box has been guided editorially by Senior Producer Derrick McElheron, who also helped launch CNBC's Worldwide Exchange. As of 2006-10-30 (the same day the Asia network debuted a new graphics package similar to its US and European siblings), the show began using the titles in use by its US counterpart since late 2005, replacing the previous one, seen below, that was used from 2004-2006.