“Nightly Business Report,” the pioneering public television series that has struggled financially in recent years, is getting a new deep-pocketed commercial owner, the 24-hour business cable channel CNBC, a unit of Comcast’s NBCUniversal.
CNBC announced Thursday afternoon that it would purchase the rights to the show, available in 96 percent of U.S. television homes, from investment firm Atalaya Capital Management, for an undisclosed price. CNBC will begin producing the program — which today originates from Miami, with bureaus in New York and Washington, and has been sold twice in recent years — from its Englewood Cliffs, N.J., headquarters on March 4.
The show will keep its format and be anchored by CNBC’s Tyler Mathisen and Susie Gharib, the current co-anchor; CNBC officials said Ms. Gharib is under contract through the end of the year. Her co-host, Tom Hudson, will depart, as will the rest of the current staff of 18 full-time employees.
In a telephone interview, Rick Schneider, the president and chief executive of Miami public station WPBT, where the show is based, called the new owners “a good thing for the program and for the public television system.” He said the deal not only would ensure the show’s survival, but “it will likely be enhanced. NBR has always lacked having a major news-gathering organization behind it.”
The purchase is the third change of hands for “Nightly Business Report” since August 2010, when Mykalai Kontilai, an entrepreneur and former mixed martial arts manager, bought it from WPBT, where the program began in 1979, before the era of 24-hour cable business news.
Atalaya Capital Management, which had backed Mr. Kontilai’s purchase, took over the program in November 2011, after few of Mr. Kontilai’s ambitious plans to expand were achieved. In recent months, Atalaya has been searching for a buyer.
In a telephone interview, Nikhil Deogun, CNBC’s senior vice president and editor in chief for business news, called “Nightly Business Report” “a great brand with a long tradition of business news.” He said that the show’s audience “has very little duplication, as best we can tell” with the CNBC audience, adding that the program will provide additional opportunities for CNBC’s roster of journalists.
PBS withdrew its financial support of “Nightly Business Report” in 2011 and stopped distributing it. Ratings have been drifting lower and the show’s sole financial underwriter, Franklin Templeton Investments, ended its support in August. In December, the program closed its Chicago bureau and laid off several employees, its second round of layoffs since 2010.
Mr. Deogun said CNBC will seek new underwriters, adding that parent NBCUniversal “has a great sales team.”
American Public Television, an alternative program delivery service, distributes the show to 180 public television stations nationwide and will continue to do so.
In a Thursday memo to employees, Mr. Schneider wrote, “This is a difficult day in the history of WPBT,” given the staff layoffs. But, he added, “It has been clear for months, even years, that the existing business model for NBR was unsustainable as national production underwriting dried up. Atalaya deserves credit for funding the series since Franklin Templeton sponsorship ended last August.”
Ms. Gharib, in a telephone interview, called the news “bittersweet” because the rest of the staff would be departing, but said, “finally NBR is getting the resources that we needed so badly. I feel good that CNBC sees value in ‘Nightly Business Report.’ It’s a testament to the high level of the program.”
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/cnbc-to-purchase-nightly-business-report/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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