CNBC: Cramer Up In Turbulent Markets, Donny Down
Via Silicon Alley Insider
CNBC: Cramer Up In Turbulent Markets, Donny Down
By Michael Learmonth
Advice for Donny Deutsch: scream a little more.
CNBC is positioning the super-tan ad man as the Oprah for entrepreneurs, but his show, “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch,” cratered in May, averaging 114,000 viewers at 10 p.m., down 25% from last year, according to Nielsen.
Jim Cramer’s hyperactive “Mad Money,” however, had a good month despite turbulence in the financial markets. Cramer was up 21% to average 214,000 viewers at 6 p.m.
Cramer (SA 100 #19) has the advantage of catching the market faithful at 6 p.m. when they’re still in that frame of mind. At 10 p.m., Deutsch has stiffer competition across the dial — like CBS’s CSI — and his show is dragging down CNBC’s primetime, which was down 19% year-over-year. (Overall CNBC ratings, including daytime, are up 17% y/y.)
It’s a perennial problem for CNBC: How to keep people watching after the financial markets close? CNBC has thrown a lot of resources, talent, John McEnroe, and even NBC’s (GE) “Deal Or No Deal” at its primetime problem over the years, but nothing has worked.
And what of the network’s new direct competition, the upstart Fox Business Network? The network NBC U chief Jeff Zucker called not “in the same universe” as CNBC? In just 35 million homes (compared to CNBC’s 90-plus million), its ratings are low enough that they don’t release them.
