A CNBC Bust
/You may or may not recall that former Fox News Anchor Shepard Smith now works and has a show on CNBC.
And that’s the problem.
No one seems to know that Smith now anchors a newscast on CNBC and has been doing so for 9 months.
The Daily Beast writes that in the nine months since he went on the air for NBCUniversal’s financial news network, Smith has put out a slickly produced, no-nonsense evening news show that prizes on-the-ground reporting over the talking-head panel fights that define many of his cable news competitors.
But The News with Shepard Smith, the brainchild of CNBC chairman Mark Hoffman, has struggled to attract the millions of viewers who watched Smith every day for years at Fox News, or to produce the fiery breakout viral moments that defined the later part of his tenure at the conservative cable-news giant. And those struggles have seemingly fostered some turmoil within the network and the show’s staff.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the show averaged just 197,000 total viewers in June, losing a third of its viewers since the show’s peak in February, which saw an average of 296,000 nightly viewers. The show is currently the seventh-highest rated program on CNBC and 11th in the key demographic of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 years old.
“There’s no question Shep is a talented news anchor with a well-defined persona,” Jon Klein, former president of CNN/US and current chairman of TAPP Media, told The Daily Beast. “The show’s struggles indicate how important it is that a program fit the overall identity of its network, because viewers almost never tune into a specific show at a specific time anymore—they go to particular networks for a certain kind of experience.”
And the show has faced its fair share of internal friction, some of which has centered on the host himself. Smith is seen as a pro with high news standards prone to generous gestures—he famously sends his employees several hundred dollars every year as a holiday bonus—but amid a wider re-evaluation of bullying in media workplaces, some staffers have complained that he is difficult to deal with.
At least two people with direct knowledge of the situation described Smith as having regular “temper tantrums.” When CNBC announced Smith was joining the business news channel, it tapped Sandy Cannold, a veteran TV producer, to help helm the show along with co-executive producer Sally Ramirez, a veteran of local television. But according to multiple people familiar with the matter, Cannold departed less than six months in, and clashed at times with Smith in front of staff.
