If CNBC’s Power Lunch were a midday meal it would have to be Chinese.
If CNBC’s Power Lunch were a midday meal it would have to be
Chinese.
The two-hour weekday dim sum offers bite-size interviews surrounded by
market data and served with sweet and sour news about publicly traded
companies.
But unlike the other shows on the cable business channel, Power Lunch
takes a softer, less market-driven approach. Airing from noon to 2 pm
and hosted by veteran business journalist Bill Griffeth, it is described
by producer Ramona Schindelheim as the channel’s ’fun spot.’
While other business slots are looking for the news makers (it is
followed by so-called money honey, Maria Bartiromo, on Street Signs, for
example) Power Lunch identifies trends or gives business advice. Recent
guest John Peterman discussed why his retail chain, J. Peterman, went
bankrupt even with all those mentions on Seinfeld.
The show’s off-beat nature is a natural for Internet companies, which
are an endless source of fun ideas. Power Lunch invited Chris
Mac-Askill, CEO of Fatbrain.com, to explain his site, which sells books
that you print out on your home computer. Hi-tech industry commentator
Esther Dyson was also a recent guest.
The October schedule is heavy with Internet coverage because the show is
due to be on the road in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. However,
Schindelheim admits she wants to widen her coverage: ’We need to get
back to doing more than tech companies.’ She advises anyone pitching her
to ’try to think of creative types of business - not everyone is
interested in the regular tech firms.’
To create stories, the show generally picks three reporters from a CNBC
pool and uses regular correspondents from The Wall Street Journal and
Dow Jones newswires. Dow Jones has a significant stake in CNBC following
its 1997 decision to merge its interests in its own European and Asian
news channels with NBC’s cable news channel.
In terms of the weekly lineup, the Journal’s medical reporter, Michael
Waldholz, appears on Mondays, while national small-business editor Kevin
Salwen is featured on Tuesdays. Power Lunch uses Internet writer Kara
Swisher on Wednesdays, tech correspondent Walter Mossberg on Thursdays
and film critic Joe Morgenstern on Fridays.
Schindelheim has been producing the show since January 1997. She works
from 8 am to 4 pm, meticulously stringing together five-minute segments
into two hours. Almost everything on the show is live, and the producer
is reluctant to take pre-recorded video interviews. However, corporate
videos illustrating a particular business idea are often used.
Each day Schindelheim books around seven guests for a range of segments
that include ’Make Your Money Work,’ a personal finance show that
features experts who give advice over the phone.
While small-business specialist Salwen does cover companies that are not
on the market, being on the big boards is otherwise virtually a
requirement for getting on the show. ’Only pitch companies over dollars
100 million market capitalization,’ says Schindelheim.
Power Lunch is also particular about putting only chief executives on
the air. Schindelheim has lately booked the likes of AT&T’s Leo Hindery,
Jr. and Sun Microsystems’s Scott McNealy. ’We only feature the CEO
because they can talk about every aspect of the business - the money,
the marketing, the profits,’ she says. ’They have the whole take.’
Schindelheim used to be a sitcom writer and it shows in her sense of
humor. She commissioned Salwen to do a piece on a man who had figured a
way of making money out of sewage. His idea was to freeze the waste as
fertilizer and turn it into snow to spray over fields, turning them
white instead of brown. Biochemical companies didn’t believe he could do
it.
Salwen, who does not cover product stories, explains that the piece
illustrated how you have to pay to demonstrate your idea if it is
difficult for people to believe you. His advice to PR pros: ’If you want
to pitch something to Power Lunch, pitch it to me at the Journal. I am
looking for stories that transcend industries and teach lessons about
how small companies operate. I look at trends, change and
myth-debunking.’
Power Lunch has obviously made a name for itself in the business
community.
’It covers a wide variety of industries,’ says Elliot Sloane, principle
of New York-based PR agency Sloane & Company. ’Other shows are more
rough-and-tumble.’
Many viewers keep a watchful eye on the graphics-laden screen where the
latest stock prices scroll along the bottom and company data run down
the side. Sometimes there is so much written information on the screen
that talking heads are reduced to the size of postage stamps.
While many viewers tune in during a lunch-time workout or over a
sandwich in the office, CNBC is unable to count them; ratings company
Nielsen records only in-home viewing. Power Lunch isn’t one of the
network’s top-rated shows but it has grown in home viewing. It has leapt
from an average 169,000 households in 1997 to 372,000 this year. The
channel is now seen in 70 million US and 147 million worldwide
homes.
According to Schindelheim, Power Lunch has even influenced Time
magazine’s choice of cover. The show featured a piece on the publicly
traded firm Spanish Broadcasting and the growing influence of Latin
Americans in the US. The piece was illustrated with a Ricky Martin
video, which was in turn seen by a Time reporter who, a few weeks later,
landed Martin on the May 24 cover.
CONTACT LIST
Power Lunch
CNBC
2200 Fletcher Avenue, Fort Lee, NJ 07024
Tel: (201) 585 2622 (switchboard)
Tel: (201) 585 6350 (general news desk)
Email: powerlunch@cnbc.com
www.cnbc.com
Executive producer of market hours: Elyse Weiner
Producer: Ramona Schindelheim
Segment producer: Chris Moon
Segment producer: Kerima Greene
CNBC staff
Reporter: David Faber
NYSE reporter: Bob Pisani
Nasdaq-Amex reporter: Tom Costello
WALL STREET JOURNAL CORRESPONDENTS
Medical reporter: Michael Waldholz
National small-business editor: Kevin Salwen
Internet reporter: Kara Swisher
Technology correspondent: Walter Mossberg
Film critic: Joe Morgenstern
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Reporter: Bob O’Brien
Reporter: Larry Bauman
Host: Bill Griffeth.
