A source of well-produced, unbiased, and informative business news did not make it into the new decade. I was caught completely off-guard tonight as I turned to YouTube to watch and listen to the latest episode of Nightly Business Report (NBR). Instead of the business news, I was greeted with this fond farewell delivered by Bill Griffeth on behalf of his colleagues.
I started watching Nightly Business Report about 25 years ago or so when it was produced by Public Television and featured the legendary Paul Kangas who died in 2017. When another stock market show called Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser (W$W) left Public Television for CNBC, I was left with Nightly Business Report since I had no cable television. Sometime around 2012, CNBC reached out to Public Television again by purchasing NBR. I think NBR was in financial trouble and needed the support of a large benefactor like CNBC.
The deal with CNBC only lasted seven years. Even with consistent distribution as a podcast and on YouTube, NBR never seemed to gather enough traction. Views on YouTube rarely hit the 10,000 level, several thousand was typical. I can imagine the “powers that be” started to see the programming as redundant and overlapping with CNBC’s other offerings and without the revenue potential. I did my best to support NBR with my own time and eyeballs!
I bid NBR a fond farewell! I will miss you, especially for the timely reporting on the housing market that sometimes fueled ideas for content for my own Housing Market Reviews.
Onward and upward. I know how hard it is to sustain an audience with news about financial markets!