CNBC Adds 'Personalities' To Slate
By STEVE DONOHUE -- Multichannel News, 1/14/2002
After taking a beating in the business-news wars, CNBC will revamp its schedule.
In addition to focusing on personality-driven news shows — a strategy Cable News Network has attempted in the last year — CNBC will cancel some programs and move up the starting time of its flagship, Business Center. The new schedule will debut on Feb. 4.
Business Center will kick off at 5 p.m., giving it a one-hour head start on CNN's Moneyline with Lou Dobbs. Both Moneyline and Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto have beaten Business Center handily in recent months.
CNBC CEO Pamela Thomas-Graham said CNBC isn't ducking Moneyline by moving up the starting time. "This is about making our flow appropriate," she said. "It has nothing to do with what competitors are doing."
CNBC also tore up its morning schedule, and will cancel Today's Business, which currently runs from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. It will be replaced by Wake-Up Call with Liz Claman and Carl Quintanilla from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. The live program will also cover broader general news stories.
Claman had been co-host of Today's Business. Quintanilla, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, will replace Bob Sellers, Claman's current co-anchor.
Wake Up Call will push back the starting time of the three-hour Squawk Box until 8 a.m., while the starting time of the two-hour Power Lunch has been pushed back until 1 p.m.
Another new program —Midday Call , hosted by Martha MacCallum and Ted David — will run in between.
Under the new strategy, each anchor will be exclusive to their respective programs, except for Maria Bartiromo, who will continue to contribute to Squawk Box in addition to anchoring her own shows.
"Each of the shows will become in some ways more like Squawk in the sense that Squawk has a definitive personality," Thomas-Graham added.
Former CNN Moneyline co-host Stuart Varney will anchor one of the new programs, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board with Stuart Varney, set to run Fridays at 7 p.m.
Bartiromo will host Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tyler Mathisen will join Bartiromo at 4 p.m., for a program that CNBC is calling Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo and Tyler Mathisen.
