How to Fix Financial Television

Barry Ritholtz has a great post listing 15 ways to fix financial television. Here’s his list:

1. Stop Yelling. Stop interrupting. Stop Talking Over Each Other: This is not Jerry Springer, its serious business. Please treat it that way.
2. Bring us People We Don’t Have Access to. Where various FinTV channels do really well is when they bring us long, thoughtful interviews with the likes of Warren Buffett, WIlliam Ackman, David Einhorn, and others. This morning, CNBC had on James Rickard. More of this please.
3. S – L – O – W D – O – W – N
4. Risk: All traders have to appreciate the downside of trades. So too, does FinTV. Explain stop losses. Understand Risk/Reward. Recognize there are periods when Buy & Hold is a jumbo loser.
5. Lose the Octobox. ‘Nuff said.
6. Separate the Signal from the Noise. Understand that most of the day to day action is simply noise. Not every data release, slice of news, or rumor is significant. Stop treating them as if they are.
7. FactCheck: An awful lot of things on air get stated with authority and confidence. Most of them are junk. Why is it that the more dubious a proposition is, the greater the confidence the speaker musters? Consider fact checking as much of the statements that are made on air.
8. Accountability is important: Track record your guests, let us know how their past few calls have been. Are they Perma-bulls or bears? Are their stock picks awful? Are they money makers? If not let us know. (If not, why even have them on?)
9. Bring Back Louis Rukeyser: Not the man, but rather, his style. Wall $treet Week — Rukeyser hosted it from 1970 to 2005 — was plain-spoken, thoughtful and accessible. The investing public would appreciate something of that sort — again.
10. Sound FX: What is with all the bizarre sound effects every time a screen changes? Its financial news, not a video game. Kill ‘em.
11. Embed your video (on your own website or YouTube) instead of using WMP. At long last, thank you.
12. Most stock picks are losers. That is part of the challenge — like a baseball, a 350 hitter is an all star. Explain this to your audience.
13. Stop the Bull/Bear Debate: This is a vast over-simplification of the market, and does not serve your audience.
14. Partisanship: Leave your personal politics at home. Viewers don’t care what most of you think.
15. Respect the Audience: We are adults. Treat us that way.

Since I was one of the very few people who didn’t like Jon Stewart’s famous attack on CNBC, I need to stress that there’s much to criticize of the network.
I think Barry is particularly about with slowing down, respecting the audience and ditching the Octobox. CNBC simply moves too quickly to give viewers much information.
I’m not so bothered by the bull/bear debate or the political stuff as long as it’s moved to the after-hours shows. Larry Kudlow should not be on during market hours.
CNBC has increasingly taken on the look and feel of ESPN. That’s no accident. Sports and stocks hit similar parts of the brain. They’re both male-centered, data-heavy and they even have scoreboards. Trading is fun, that’s fine to admit, but it shouldn’t be treated as a circus.
What CNBC needs to add is more thoughtful commentary on the markets. The network has already done this type of work with David Faber’s specials. Those are very good and they should bring more of the type of programming to they’re day-to-day schedule.

Posted by on June 8th, 2009 at 10:34 am


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.