“Come to Jesus” at 30 Rock
posted at 6:06 am on April 16, 2009 by Kid from Brooklyn
After the Santelli blast, and after Cramer calling Obama a “destroyer of capital”, we fully expected that there was another shoe waiting to drop…and it did. Walk my Wagyu through a warm room, please…
“It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind,” a source familiar with the powwow told us. “There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There’s great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy.”
Creepy, you say? Like Chris Matthews leg-thrill creepy, or Olbermann-in-general creepy? I’m only surprised that the Code Red wasn’t ordered earlier. The piece goes on to say that Santelli wasn’t there, but Cramer did attend. Well, there you have it. After his appearance on Jon Stewart and his flip-flop on Obama, who among us didn’t question the timing? Well, now we know. And really, given NBC’s storied, leg-thrill laden “special relationship” with this Administration, I expected no less. Now, at least, we know where this week’s “teabagging” fetish comes from.
Blowback
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Kramer : “I was for O’bama before I was against him. I was for Elliot Spitzer before he got caught. I was for the financials before I skewered them.” What a real sob – no conviction; no moral compass – just an egocentric sycophant. Give me Cavuto anyday.
Fuquay Steve on April 16, 2009 at 6:18 AM
Payoff for GE = NBC propaganda machine. AND that’s ON TOP of their already left-leaning management, and entire team.
marklmail on April 16, 2009 at 7:33 AM
It would be funny if the msm dump their so called right wingers and Fox ends up picking them up. Fox will need another channel for it’s reruns so it can move the people like Beck into prime time.
Brat4life on April 16, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Santelli to Fox Business please!
jencab on April 16, 2009 at 7:45 AM
If CNBC loses the freewheeling nature of its discussions (at least on the shows that air before or during the trading day) it won’t be worth watching. The decision to add Dean as a commentator was about as much as I was willing to see them concede. Liesman’s far more knowledgeable — a few more like him would be fine with me.
CNBC’s about the only place left where pro-market policies aren’t apologized for and statism isn’t awarded the benefit of every doubt. I won’t stand seeing that chilled.
DrSteve on April 16, 2009 at 7:45 AM
Translation: Conservatives are to be despised and undesirable for the NBC network
NBC = No Barack Criticism
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on April 16, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Barry sez “Now that’s the CNBC I knew”
Tim Zank on April 16, 2009 at 7:54 AM
And to think I was paranoid when I thought that there were actual meetings going on where left-wing agendas were set by the news media idiots.
I must have been smoking some strong dope.
benrand on April 16, 2009 at 8:04 AM
What is never discussed is the huge multibillion dollar bailout that GE got. Much more than GM, by the way and may even be larger than AIG.. yet NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT!!
(How about a little less of the fat Meghan McCain posts, and a few more about the GE scandal-to-be?)
They also have spent billions in lobbying for the lightbulb boondoggle, carbon credits (they own a carbon credit trading scam company) and a ton of other taxpayer-depleting rent-seeking schemes.
They are the poster boys of the Obama “crony capitalism”, and a far more dangerous company than Enron or Worldcom ever was. Enron, by the way, started the entire Carbon Credit scheme and GE just picked it up from them.
Oh, and remember the 150 hours of “Green” programming at NBC right before the elections?
GE is an evil company, and one that conservatives need to bring into the light day in and day out. We also need to contact the sponsers of MSNBC’s low-rated Obama Cult shows, since they are enabling this crap.
TexasJew on April 16, 2009 at 8:10 AM
GE would never bite the hand that feeds. That TARP money is in the bag!
Go RBNY on April 16, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Huffpo had a lot to do with this. They started a campaign to target Zucker and make him turn CNBC into a “Wall St Watchdog”. You can see the mission creep in the daily coverage. It resembles Fox & Friends during the middle of W’s two terms; everything tilts in favor of the administration, no matter what the facts are.
This is a very dangerous game Zucker is playing. CNBC is still the cash-cow when it comes to ad rates because the affluence of the audience is the highest of all channels even though it’s a fractional size. If he pushes the post-bell coverage to be more Barry-friendly, than Kudlow will flip out and turn this into a huge fiasco. He’ll then go to FBN with a lot of coverage. It would take a lot to entice Santelli. Bartiromo and Burnett seem quite socially-left, (though Maria was an open Palin fan), and the NBC advantage is still the ability to throw them on the Today show. Those two would end up in a bidding war between FBN, ABC, Bloomberg and CNN. The main advantage for Fox is that Ailes founded CNBC, so they know him well. The disadvantage is FBN doesn’t have the market penetration that CNBC has.
Murdoch needs to put Ailes in charge of all the Fox channels, including the network. Then we’ll see a realignment in television programming and slant.
budfox on April 16, 2009 at 8:20 AM
It doesn’t matter it’s ll kabuki theater, and no one is watching them….the real question is when do they go out of business? They have run GE into the ditch. Shares selling at 11.82 yeah that’s a great business plan astroturfing for Socialist.
http://www.marketwatch.com/quotes/ge
Dr Evil on April 16, 2009 at 8:31 AM
The problem with the GE-Obama government cult is it’s self-reinforcing. They’re a media monster with constant access to the minds of both members and critics (through CNBC mostly). They make the perfect fascist buttboys. CNN is the insecure #2 who has to line up and beg for Obama’s attention, just as they did yesterday.
econavenger on April 16, 2009 at 8:57 AM
Dr Evil on April 16, 2009 at 8:31 AM
But if it wasn’t for the government stealing over 100 billion of our money and handing it to them, GE would be out of business.
In actual terms, they’re bankrupt.
It’s all a corrupt political payoff (and Buffett got 10% of their preferred stock, cheap, thanks to his Democrat buddies).
TexasJew on April 16, 2009 at 9:13 AM
They’re not bankrupt, they’re insolvent. UMC, the blanket umbrella for NBC, Universal, etc… actually has performed well. It’s the other divisions, mainly Cap One and other financials, that are sinking the entire company which lead to the Gov’t bailout.
And you can’t use a ticker price as a companies worth. If that was an accurate barometer, Newscorp should be broken up because it’s been trading around 8USD for a a few months. Murdoch is getting killed because the bottom has fallen out of the advertising market, which is why he’s consolidating resources and restructuring management.
As for going after GE’s advertisers, it’s doesn’t work and certainly not now. Advertising is now a buyer’s market so Zucker would keep offering sweeter deals for companies to weather the criticism. The ads will stay and Olby’s crew would have more news fodder about “the fascists”.
We need Fox Business to expand. It’s roughly a 2-1 advantage for CNBC in availability. If FBN can close that gap you’ll get talent to jump and break the audience. At some point, Murdoch will look into buying Bloomberg TV and that combined with the expiration of the CNBC/WSJ deal next year would be a game-changer. There’s also the possibility of killing off the importance of networks once the digital transition is complete. If that happens, NBC’s value plummets.
budfox on April 16, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Notice how fast they dug up Donnie Deutche from his crypt to put forth the rich liberal spin. The guy sucks and probably would poop his pants if he ever met a common American. Kudlow is tolerable especially when he talks mustard seeds (that must be like nails on a chalkboard for the libs at 30 rock)
Fuquay Steve on April 16, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Fox news is about the only buisness I have ever seen where success doesn’t breed imiatators.
You would think by now there would a second conservative tv station perhaps with a little more red meat or perhaps a little less and more brian lamb type interviews or old style ‘firing line’ type shows.
I like seeing shows where the guest gets more than 30 seconds to respond.
This is why I have a hard time watching o’reilly and beck sometimes.
I saw michelle on GB show one time and it consisted of beck asking/commenting for 1 minute and michelle responding for 15 seconds then GB interupting and asking /commenting 1. minute and then Michelle responds 5 seconds and then it is on to the next segment. I hate that
kangjie on April 16, 2009 at 10:28 AM
Why would they care if they are considered the “Anti-Obama network?” Is it hurting their ratings (is that possible?)? Are they suddenly concerned about journalistic integrity?
This is pretty telling. They haven’t minded partisanship killing their ratings (and ratings are why, as a business, they exist) in the past and they haven’t been worried about journalistic integrity for years now.
So they are pretty much admitting that they are nothing more than a tool of the Democrat party.
29Victor on April 16, 2009 at 10:39 AM
In case you haven’t noticed, GE is now a bank with a conglomerate attached. GE is at significant risk of default if nobody pumps TARP money into them.
So the Obama administration has GE by the short hairs, and GE managment knows it. If parts of the GE empire tick off Obama enough, GE could go bust.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123983364624522617.html
nerdbert on April 16, 2009 at 12:01 PM
kangjie – that is exactly what I was wondering, especially after CNN’s bullsh!t coverage yesterday.
It can only be personal ideology because the numbers do not add up, literally.
What’s so messed up about CNBC is that they had the perfect venue to be the third-party news outlet. Now, they’re going to nosedive.
budfox on April 16, 2009 at 12:36 PM
This is not MSNBC’s fault. Some stupid Page brought the wrong kind of Kool-Aid to the staff meeting and suddenly there was an “awakening”.
All is back to normal, as this kind of disaster will never happen again due to new safeguards instituted by security.
portlandon on April 16, 2009 at 4:47 PM