CNBC's roots date back to the founding in 1979 of the Satellite Program Network (SPN), which showed a low-budget mix of old movies and instructional and entertainment programs. The channel later changed its name to Tempo Television. After initially signing a letter of intent to acquire Tempo, NBC opted for a deal to lease the channel's transponder in June 1988. On this platform, and under the guidance of Tom Rogers, the channel was relaunched on April 17, 1989, as the Consumer News and Business Channel. NBC and Cablevision initially operated CNBC as a 50–50 joint venture, and it was headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Sue Herera and Scott Cohn joined CNBC at its inception.
CNBC was originally founded in April 1989 as the Consumer News and Business Channel, a joint venture between NBC and Cablevision. Following its 1991 bankruptcy, NBC acquired the competing Financial News Network (FNN) and merged it into CNBC, and acquired Cablevision's stake in CNBC to give it full ownership.
After an accounting scandal, FNN filed for bankruptcy protection on March 2, 1991, and put itself up for sale. After a bidding war with a Dow Jones & Company–Westinghouse Broadcasting consortium, CNBC was awarded FNN by a bankruptcy judge for $154.3 million on May 21, 1991, and merged the two operations. CNBC hired around 60 of FNN's 300-person workforce. Bill Griffeth and Joe Kernen, who are still with the channel, joined CNBC at that time. Other former FNN's workforce were hired by Bloomberg Television. The deal increased the distribution of the network to over 40 million homes. Cablevision sold its 49.5% stake in CNBC to NBC upon completion of the deal.
Roger Ailes was hired as the president of CNBC in August 1993, tasked by NBC CEO Bob Wright with turning around the struggling network. Ailes resigned in January 1996 due to disagreements with management including the decision by NBC management to form a joint venture with Microsoft that included the rebrand of "America's Talking" as MSNBC. Under the leadership of Ailes, annual revenue at CNBC rose from $43 million to $110 million.
In June 1995, CNBC launched the Hong Kong-based CNBC Asia, and CNBC Europe, headquartered in London, in March 1996.
In December 1997, CNBC formed a strategic alliance with Dow Jones, including content sharing with Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, and Barron's and the rebranding of the channel as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones". As part of the agreement, Dow Jones merged their competing business news channels—London-based European Business News and Singapore-based Asia Business News—into CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia respectively, with CNBC shutting down its Hong Kong-based operation and relocating the new CNBC Asia to ABN's Singapore studios.
Beginning in 2000, CNBC has carried portions of NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games outside of business day hours. The frequent delegation of curling coverage to CNBC during the 2010 Winter Olympics helped the sport gain a cult following among the business community.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CNBC's ratings increased sharply along with the stock market, often beating those of CNN during market hours. The highest daytime viewership of the network in 2000 was 343,000.
In 2001, CNBC began a four-year deal to televise events from the Senior PGA Tour, either live or tape delayed, with early-round coverage broadcast on cable feeds of Pax. CNBC president Bill Bolster stated that the decision was meant to help reduce CNBC's reliance on paid programming on weekends. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem also felt that golf and business audiences were "extremely compatible" with each other.
However, after the burst of the dot-com bubble, CNBC's viewing figures declined in tandem. In 2002, CNBC's ratings fell 44% and were down another 5% in 2003. The network's ratings steadily fell until bottoming in Q1 2005, with an average viewership of 134,000 during the day.
In August 2003, CNBC signed a deal to provide weather content from AccuWeather.
In October 2003, CNBC moved its world headquarters from Fort Lee (which became the new home of Telemundo flagship station WNJU) to a new digital video production studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
CNBC reported annual revenues of $510 million in 2006. In September 2006, CNBC launched the FTSE CNBC Global 300 stock market index in conjunction with FTSE Group. The index includes the fifteen largest companies from each of the sectors of the Industry Classification Benchmark as well as the thirty largest companies from emerging markets. Profits at CNBC exceeded $333 million in 2007, making CNBC the second most profitable of NBC Universal's thirteen cable channels in the United States, behind only the USA Network. Ratings hit an all-time high in 2007.
CNBC Africa was launched on June 1, 2007. On October 22, 2007, CNBC introduced the "CNBC Investor Network", a network of webcams stationed in the trading rooms of various independent financial institutions across the United States, allowing traders to be interviewed instantaneously as news breaks. In December 2007, CNBC formed a content partnership with Yahoo! Finance.
Regarding CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer, an August 20, 2007, article in Barron's stated that "his picks haven't beaten the market. Over the past two years, viewers holding Cramer's stocks would be up 12% while the Dow rose 22% and the S&P 500 16%."
On October 10, 2007, CNBC HD, a 1080i high-definition television simulcast of CNBC, was launched, first on DirecTV.
In January 2008, CNBC formed a content partnership with The New York Times, which was seen as an attempt by both parties to take on increased competition from News Corporation. In May 2008, CNBC formed a content partnership with AOL.
Average daytime viewership (6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) reached a seven-year high of 310,000 viewers in the first quarter of 2008. Ratings plummeted in 2009 as the network aired bad economic news resulting from the Great Recession. In January 2010, the launch of the Korean language channel SBS-CNBC marked the fifteenth CNBC-branded channel worldwide. In July 2010, BT signed a five-year contract with CNBC Europe to distribute content from its London headquarters to sister sites in Europe and the US.
In 2011, CNBC won an award at the International Broadcasting Convention for its CNBC 4D: Interactive motion tracking that allows CNBC presenters to interact with 3D graphics, using technology from Unreel, Brainstorm, Motion Analysis. In June 2012, CNBC expanded its partnership with Yahoo! Finance in an effort to reach more online viewers. That month, CNBC.com had 6.5 million unique visitors in the United States while Yahoo! Finance had 37.5 million.
In 2012, CNBC aired the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes and the Arkansas Derby.
NBC Universal reacquired full control of loss-making CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia from Dow Jones at the end of 2005. The licensing agreement between Dow and CNBC U.S. remained intact, until it expired in 2012.
In 2013, host Maria Bartiromo left CNBC for Fox Business in part because Fox offered her $5–6 million per year compared to the $4 million per year that she made at CNBC. Also that year, CNBC took over production of the popular public television program Nightly Business Report from NBR Worldwide, a subsidiary of Atalaya Global Management.
On October 13, 2014, coincidentally the 11th anniversary of CNBC's relocation to its current facilities in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, CNBC switched to a full 16:9 letterbox presentation, in line with CNBC Asia and CNBC Europe.
In 2015, CNBC aired portions of the 2015 UCI Road Cycling World Championships.
On January 6, 2015, CNBC changed the way it calculates ratings, switching from Nielsen ratings to a system by Cogent Research to calculate the viewership of its business day programming by surveying financial advisers and investors, with the goal of providing a more accurate measurement of the network's out-of-home viewership; Nielsen is still used to track the viewership of its entertainment programming.
In October 2015, a Republican Party candidates debate hosted by CNBC was seen by 14 million viewers—the highest viewership of a CNBC program to-date.
In 2016 and 2017, CNBC aired IndyCar races from Mid-Ohio. In 2017, CNBC also aired the IndyCar race from Toronto.
In 2016 and 2017, CNBC aired The Game, the annual college football game between Harvard University and Yale University as part of NBC Sports' Ivy League television contract. In 2022, CNBC is scheduled to air the first ever HBCU New York City Football Classic between Howard University and Morehead State University.
In 2016, CNBC aired the Russian Grand Prix.
In 2016, CNBC broadcast several NASCAR races (as part of the NASCAR on NBC package) due to scheduling conflicts with other NBCUniversal channels during the 2016 Summer Olympics.
On January 10, 2016, CNBC announced a new partnership with Indonesian broadcaster Trans Media to form CNBC Indonesia.
In 2019 and 2021, CNBC aired coverage of the final two days of the Amundi Evian Championship, as part of the LPGA Tour. It will do the same in 2022.
In September 2021, CNBC signed a new multi-platform deal with Jim Cramer; in addition to his existing television roles, the agreement includes the co-development of live events and digital content through his company Cramer Media (replacing his previous arrangement with TheStreet, which Cramer had co-founded, and sold to The Arena Group in 2019), including a direct-to-consumer subscription service. In January 2022, the subscription service launched as the "CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer", which includes commentaries, stock picks, and monthly online meetings. The service operates alongside another CNBC subscription service, "CNBC Pro", which similarly provides exclusive content and over-the-top streaming of CNBC's networks.
CNBC's online video operations generated an all-time high of 1.92 billion total digital video starts across platforms in 2020.
In 2020, CNBC aired Stage 14 and Stage 15 of the Tour de France.
In 2020, CNBC hired former Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith to host a new evening newscast on the channel, The News with Shepard Smith, which premiered that September. It was positioned as an objective, "fact-based" national newscast.
In 2020, the 2020 YellaWood 500 was bumped to CNBC after the race ran long and it interfered with other programming
In 2021, CNBC aired portions of the Royal Ascot and Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series.
In 2021, CNBC aired the NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Watkins Glen.
In 2022, CNBC aired stage 8 of the Paris–Nice.
In 2022, CNBC aired the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes from Gulfstream and the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes from Santa Anita, as part of the Road to the Kentucky Derby.
In 2022, CNBC will air portions of the Women's Tour de France.
In 2022, ten AMA Supercross Championship races aired on CNBC.
In August 2022, Mark Hoffman stepped down as president of CNBC after 17 years at the network, being succeeded by NBCUniversal president of global advertising and partnerships KC Sullivan. Under Sullivan, the network began to refocus its programming to broaden appeal to its core business audience, including a promise of more business-related documentaries in primetime, and cancelling the low-rated The News with Shepard Smith in November 2022 in favor of the new financial news program Last Call with Brian Sullivan, which premiered in January 2023.
On August 28, 2022, due to a rain out the previous night, CNBC aired the 2022 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at 10AM ET. The race was originally intended to be shown on NBC in primetime.
In 2023, CNBC had higher total day and primetime viewership than its rival, Fox Business, but finished behind Fox in trading day viewership.
In 2023, during the first quarter of a game between the New Orleans Breakers and the Memphis Showboats, lightning strikes in the Memphis area forced a weather delay which lasted 3 hours. Due to local and primetime programming coming up on NBC, NBC and the USFL announced that the game would resume on CNBC.
On December 11, 2023, CNBC underwent a major rebranding, updating its logo for the first time since 1996 (adopting the updated NBC peacock and corporate typeface introduced a year prior), and revamping its on-air graphics with a simpler flat design. The two-tiered stock ticker CNBC had historically used was replaced with a single scroll, with major indices now displayed in a strip below the stock ticker.
Current notable programming (as of March 2024)