Dow 11,700 continued…why CNBC is still ripe for disruption.

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  • on October 1st, 2006

Michael Parekh had a great post on the Dow’s media coverage by CNBC .

I have not been watching, but he calls it “uncomfortable”. That is very interesting. When I watch a stand-up in trouble on stage, I get uncomfortable, but have never had that feeling watching CNBC. I get angry. I am finally smart enough to have it tuned out of my daily life.

Most others watch, but have decided to mute it. Never got this. Does it make them feel “in tune”, “market saavy”, “sophisticated”.

Should not the goal of the most influential business channel in the world be “TO MAKE YOU MONEY”, “TO EDUCATE”.

Let’s take a simple example from Michael’s post:

The CNBC coverage has been particularly giddy in the types of stories the network has covered in recent days.

An example yesterday was a “Power Lunch” feature on executives taking a 4-minute, $2000, helicopter flight, ferrying themselves from their corporate jets in Teterboro, N.J., into Manhattan’s East side. The example used had executives going to a lunch at the Four Seasons.

If CNBC or anyone with talent, had the “balls”, this story could be great if the style and tone were different. If taken from a ValleyWag approach to tech reporting, the segment could take on a much more meaningful and interesting tone. “How do these helicopter lunches help the common shareholder , Mr. asshole executive.”

It is as if the whole crew at CNBC long gave it up.

I would love to ask 20 CNBC personalities what the networks “Mission Statement” includes. Guaranteed they have none or I would get 20 different answers.

I say great, lucky for me and the longer it goes on (it will – trust me), lucky for any smart aggressive media entrepreneur that would like to challenge their dominance of the TV airwaves.

As Michael sums up: “It’d be nice if CNBC focused on the broader context and perspective for a change, for the sake of it’s mainstream audience.” Sounds like a business opportunity to me :) .

PS – Merrill Lynch has some great notes on what today’s DOW prices really mean (from Michael Parekh’s post):

“…the average Dow stock is still down 34% from the prior high and the median is down 39%. Not only that, but consider what it means to go back to levels we last saw 6-1/2-years ago – it means no net change over a span that saw the Treasury market generated a total return that exceeded 50%.

Not only that, but take inflation into account and in real terms the Dow is still 14% shy of the old record. And since this is still just a composite of 30 stocks, call us when the broad S&P 500 reaches the milestone – it has 14% (or 188 points) to go still.”

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