What can be said here that we haven't said countless times before [10]? If the braintrust behind Comcast's acquisition of the CNBC package deal, not to mention assorted increasingly more desperate CNBC producers, had hoped that an artificial "wealth effect" created under a central planning world would lead to greater viewership, more retail stock market participation, and better advertising terms (not to mention revenues), they were wrong. Very, very wrong.
The Nielsen rating of CNBC's business day audience:
[11]
Adding insult to the injury that is laughable total business day viewership back to only 2005 levels (and back to 1994 levels, when the bulk of today's traders weren't even born, in the demo) despite countless promo dollars, endless schmoozathons with the 0.01%ers, and trillions in dollars spent on bailing out fake and artificial markets and thus the TV channels covering them, were the following data points from Nielsen Media:
- Squawk Box had its lowest rated month since August 2005. Seemingly not even Joe Kernen's caustic wit, impeccable sarcasm, conspicuous coiffe and wry humor (if only in his own mind) and ARS' access journalistic "skills" are enough to unsink this particular Titanic
- Squawk on the Street had its lowest rated quarter and second lowest rated month ever
- Kudlow Report had its lowest ever rated month and quarter ever. Not even King Dollar can save Larry
- Mad Money had its lowest ever rated month and quarter ever. Sorry Jim: maybe stick to your hedge fund. Oh wait
The biggest irony, of course, is that to regain the lost viewership, CNBC needs precisely the kind of Bernanke-free volatility and real, unmanipulated markets that it itself preaches against every single day.
Oh well: it's been fun.
Update:
Thanks to observent readers, we just learned that none other than the abovementioned Larry Kudlow, alongside Deutsche's Joe LaVorgna, best known for such empirical studies as Groundhog Phil vs. Joe LaVorgna [12], and Joe LaVorgna vs Randomness, And Randomness Wins, [13] decided to counter our argument (first noted here in December 2010 [14]) that the American New Normal is a part-time one, something which even the USA Today admitted yesterday [15].
We will let readers watch the clip below, which concluded with CNBC inviting Zero Hedge to participate on CNBC. While we appreciate the offer, the last thing we intend to do is i) to boost assorted Comcast TV properties' record low ratings, and ii) suffer Mr. Kudlow the same fate as that experienced by his predecessor Dennis Kneale who also invited Zero Hedge [16]on his laughable excuse for a show in 2009, only to be sacked a few months later.
Finally, unlike various slideshow-heavy, Preferred Round ZZ financial tabloids, we have no use for CNBC or appearances thereon.