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CNBC (an abbreviation for the "Consumer News and Business Channel", its official name until 1991) is a cable and satellite television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBC Universal. CNBC and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers around the world. The network is currently ranked as the 19th most valuable cable channel in the U.S., worth roughly $4 billion.
Much of CNBC's on-air talent has been with the network for some time: Sue Herera and Scott Cohn joined CNBC at its inception, and remain on the air co-hosting Power Lunch and as senior correspondent respectively. Some personalities who joined CNBC from FNN in 1991, such as Ron Insana, Bill Griffeth and Joe Kernen, are also still with the channel. The network has of late sought to increase the profile of its on-air team with the launch of rival business station Fox Business Network - although CNBC's best known personality, Closing Bell host Maria Bartiromo, has for some time made regular appearances on other NBC News broadcasts such as The Today Show as well as anchoring the syndicated Wall Street Journal Report, other CNBC hosts such as Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett have also been used increasingly across NBC's output.
In addition to its roster of program anchors, CNBC employs a team of reporters who contribute across the network's business day programming, the majority of whom are based at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs. In addition, CNBC has staff permanently based at bureaux in Midtown Manhattan, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Jose (the latter referred to on air as "CNBC Silicon Valley"). Cost-cutting at NBC Universal's news divisions has seen some of these offices merged with those of NBC owned-and-operated stations: the Silicon Valley facility was moved from Palo Alto to the KNTV (NBC 11) newsroom in San Jose in January 2007 (occasionally KNTV reporters Scott Budman and Scott McGrew will now correspond for CNBC), while the Chicago bureau now shares a home with WMAQ (NBC 5). The network also has reporters posted at the New York Stock Exchange (where CNBC also has a set used for broadcasting Squawk on the Street, The Call and Closing Bell), NASDAQ MarketSite, NYMEX and the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange each day.
CNBC is well known today for its flashy and ostentatious graphics package, complete with accompanying animations and animation-sounds. Previous graphics packages put together by the network since the early 90's have gradually increased the "wow" factor -- likely in order to catch a casual viewer's eye, as cable news competition has increased dramatically since the late 80's (when the network was launched).
On 2006-11-15, CNBC's 'crystal' gray logo bug was changed to color revealing the rainbow's peacock's normal NBC colors. On 2006-11-28, the new smaller CNBC color bug (similar to the one used in the revamped ticker) began to show up on CNBC's non-business related primetime programming (where the ticker is not shown, except Mad Money and Fast Money), replacing the much bigger 'crystal' bug.
On 2007-03-01, CNBC's Squawk on the Street and Closing Bell both started using a new countdown clock (shown in minutes:seconds:tenths-of-a-second format) on the graphics' lower-third of the screen. On 2007-07-27, it moved to the lower right of the screen, where the CNBC color bug is usually seen. The countdown clock is used for the "Opening Bell Countdown" segment on Squawk on the Street, and for the "Closing Countdown" segment on Closing Bell.
On 2007-05-02, CNBC's Mad Money revamped its own on-air graphics package, replacing what was used -- including its opening animation sequence -- since the program's 2005-03-14 debut.
In November 2007, the CNBC color bug in the ticker on the lower right of the screen started rotating (and morphing) between the network logo and the CNBC.com logo and back. This is seen only during the network's "Business Day" programming.
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