CNBC, formerly the CNBC, formerly the Consumer News and Business Channel, is a US cable news and satellite television business news channel, owned and operated by NBC Universal., is a US cable news and satellite television business news channel, owned and operated by NBC Universal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provides live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is around 390 million viewers worldwide, and the network is currently ranked as the 19th most valuable cable channel in the U.S., worth roughly $4 billion.

In the Beginning

The channel originally had its beginnings around 1980 as The Satellite Program Network (SPN), showing a low-budget mix of old movies, instructional & entertainment programs, and infomercials. The channel later changed its name to Tempo Television. After initially signing a letter of intent to acquire Tempo, NBC eventually opted for a deal to lease the channel's transponder in June 1988. On April 17, 1989, using the transponder leased from Tempo, the channel was re-launched as the Consumer News and Business Channel.  NBC and Cablevision initially operated CNBC as a 50-50 joint venture, choosing to headquarter the channel in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

CNBC had considerable difficulty getting cable carriage at first, as many providers were skeptical of placing it alongside the longer-established Financial News Network. By the winter of 1990, CNBC was only in 17 million homes - less than half of its competitor, the Financial News Network, despite having the muscle of NBC standing behind it.

Merging with FNN

However, around this time, FNN encountered serious financial difficulties. After a protracted bidding war with a Dow Jones-Westinghouse Broadcasting consortium, CNBC acquired FNN for $154.3 million on May 21, 1991 and immediately merged the two operations, hiring around 60 of FNN's 300-strong workforce. The deal increased the distribution of the newly enlarged network to over 40 million homes. Cablevision sold its 50% stake to NBC upon completion of the deal. With the full name "Consumer News and Business Channel" dropped, the network's business programming was at first branded "CNBC/FNN," although this was phased out before the mid-90s.

Growth and Overseas Expansion

CNBC began to grow during the 90s, launching Asian and European versions of the channel in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1997, CNBC formed a strategic alliance with Dow Jones, including content sharing with Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal and the rebranding of the channel as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones". CNBC's international channels were then merged into a 50-50 joint venture with their Dow Jones-owned rivals, London-based EBN (European Business News) and Singapore-sited ABN (Asia Business News) in 1998, while ratings grew on the U.S. channel until the new millennium's dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

Into The New Millennium

The new millennium also brought changes to the network, moving its world headquarters from Fort Lee to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 2003, which features completely digital video production and studios made by PDG Ltd of Beeston, Nottinghamshire and the FX Group of Ocoee, Florida.

NBC Universal re-acquired full control of  the at the time 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, however.

CNBC Today

Today, CNBC provides business news programming from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk shows, investigative reports, documentaries, infomercials, repurposed NBC game shows, and other programs during the evening and early morning. A rolling ticker provides real-time updates on share prices on the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, as well as market indices, news summaries, and weather updates by NBC Meteorologists (prior to March 27, 2006, all of CNBC's weather reports were provided by AccuWeather). A rotating top band of the screen rotates provides real-time updates on index and commodity prices from world markets.

CNBC is the only NBC network whose abbreviation, while containing NBC, stands for another name: the Consumer News and Business Channel. The moniker was simply shortened to CNBC when the former was dropped.

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