Just stumbled upon this thread. Very interesting stuff, especially for someone who watches CNBC, CNNfn and Bloomberg TV alot.
Here is my take. Squawk Box is terrific. "Must See TV" for anyone interested in the stock market. Haines, Kernan and Faber really do their homework and it shows. Squawk Box goes up even a notch higher when they have a guest host like Jim Cramer. The only thing that could be done to improve Squawk Box would be to get rid of Kathleen Hays and bring in someone who knows what they're talking about. Seeing her stumble through her credit market reports...you get embarrassed FOR her. She is the only person on the set who can be outsmarted by Jimmy Rogers (didn't think that was possible). Memo to CNBC: pay Karen Gibbs whatever it will take for her to leave Fox and come back to CNBC--Karen Gibbs was a credit market person who knew what she was talking about.
The rest of the programming is, well, a little lame. At least for my tastes. I'm a broker and have DSS in my office, where I flip between CNBC, CNNfn and Bloomberg TV during the day. The reason I tune in is "Tell me something I don't know already." It seems that, after Squawk Box, the rest of the day is spent rehashing the same few worn-out stories about MSFT, CPQ, DELL, etc. How many times do we need to hear that MSFT is being pursued by the Justice Department before we get the picture that Bill Gates is spending a lot of money on legal fees? Rehashing the story 20 times a day is overkill.
Just as annoying are the "buy-sell-hold" interviews. For the most part, the same friggin' stocks are always asked about: Compaq, Dell, Iomega, etc. The funny thing is, people who are calling in think they're getting some great in-depth researched opinion, when in fact, all the guy is doing is reading a teleprompter with that company's 52-week chart and a brief Yahoo-type summary of what the company does.
The most annoying part of the programming is "Power Lunch." Power Lunch??? A better name would be "High School Cafeteria Lunch." It is, in my opinion, the most worthless 2 hours of TV. Bill Griffeth was pretty good when he was on FNN in the old days, but his show is nothing but mush, now. "Today on Power Lunch, we'll talk to a financial planner who will tell you how to find out if you're being bilked in your 401K plan. And later, we'll find out why Fidelity Magellan fund went up 2 cents yesterday..." Yeah, that's real interesting. Point in case: yesterday, they had a guy who was the founder of Petes Brewing Co., a stock that has dropped sharply since it came public 3 years ago. Instead of asking tough questions, ala Mark Haines, to find out where the company is headed, Griffeth spends the entire interview talking about the guy's recently published book. If I want a book review, I'll tune in Oprah. When I'm watching CNBC, I want to find out about stocks.
And who is this Kate Bonner chick, and why in the world would I want to hear what she has to say? "You know, Bill, in the entertainment world, Tom Cruise is scheduled to make a new film...'my sources' (I have to laugh whenever she says that, "my sources..." Who are these 'sources', some guy she met in a NYC meatmarket the night before???) say the director is none other than Steven Spielberg...ooohhhh..." Yeah, her "Power Files" are so helpful in making investment decisions, NOT!
And don't even get me started about the preponderance of annoying commercials...
But in fairness, CNNfn rehashes a lot of stuff too, albeit not quite as frequently as CNBC. My "dream" financial TV programming would use extra time to profile overlooked or unknown companies...instead of hearing about Microsoft 35 times a day, I'd like to learn about a company I've never heard of. Or give some of these portfolio managers more time than the usual 3 minute segment so they can go into detail about why they like certain stocks.
Of course, as someone earlier in this thread said, programming like that would never fly. Why do they cover CPQ, DELL, MSFT, T and IOM so much? Because the majority of their target market owns these stocks. Most people tune in to hear about what they own. They may say they tune in to become more market savvy, or to learn something new, but in reality, they wanna know why Compaq is down 3/4 that day. As soon as they profiled a company Joe Sixpack had never heard of, Joe Sixpack would change the channel back to Jerry Springer.
Just my take. |
