NEW YORK—Versant Media Group, Inc. has acquired StockStory, an AI-powered platform delivering financial analysis, market insights, and stock recommendations, in a deal that will expand the company’s offerings in business news and personal finance.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

StockStory’s AI-driven technology will strengthen CNBC’s ability to provide data-driven insights with faster, more actionable analysis to help investors make informed investment decisions in real time.

“At Versant, we’re focused on extending our core brands into new platforms and services to drive growth across our portfolio,” said Deep Bagchee, chief product and technology officer for news at Versant. “This acquisition builds on that approach, adding capabilities that will enhance how we deliver insights and deepen engagement among retail investors across CNBC’s digital offerings.”

"We’re proud of what our team has built at StockStory - a platform combining AI and data-driven insights to help investors make better decisions," said Adam Hejl, founder and CEO of StockStory. “We’re excited to join CNBC, a defining and deeply respected global brand, and contribute to its next chapter of digital growth."

StockStory’s technology focuses on scalable analysis of public companies, combining data, machine learning, AI, and editorial frameworks to generate investment insights. These capabilities will further enhance the depth and quality of CNBC’s coverage.

As part of the transaction, Adam Hejl will join Versant and report to Deep Bagchee.

StockStory’s team will support ongoing product and technology initiatives, with an initial focus on enhancing CNBC’s digital investing capabilities.

NEW YORK—AccuWeather has announced a multi-year deal with MS Now to provide weather forecasts, content, data, and access to its expert meteorologists to the network's audiences.

Comcast is spinning off its cable networks and other assets from NBCUniversal into Versant, a new company, at the end of 2025 or early in 2026. As part of that, MSNBC is separating from NBC News and rebranding as MS NOW in mid-November.

The new deal makes AccuWeather the preferred weather source for Versant, which will own MS NOW and business-news channel CNBC when the spinoff is complete.

"At such a groundbreaking moment for soon-to-be MS Now, we are proud to continue to expand our reporting capabilities and offerings alongside AccuWeather,” said MS Now senior vice president of newsgathering Scott Matthews. “Our network's mission—embodied through our new name MS Now, My Source for News, Opinion and the World—is to bring our viewers the most-trusted news that they care about. We know, at a moment of unprecedented weather events, that AccuWeather will bring top-quality data and reporting to our audiences.”

“AccuWeather is proud to be the Preferred Weather Provider for Versant, which further enhances AccuWeather’s core mission to save lives, protect property, and help people and businesses make the best weather-impacted decisions,” AccuWeather CEO Steven R. Smith said. “AccuWeather's forecasts and warnings with proven Superior Accuracy from its expert meteorologists will now reach millions more people with this multi-year deal on many new platforms."

MS NOW also said has hired David Parkinson as senior weather and elections data analyst and Moses Small as climate reporter to join the network's growing roster of journalists. Emmy award-winning Parkinson joins MS NOW from CBS News, while Small joins from KGTV San Diego. Parkinson and Small will be working alongside AccuWeather's expert meteorologists to deliver the AccuWeather forecasts on Versant networks.

AccuWeather will support MS NOW, as well as CNBC, including daily on-air segments on “Morning Joe” and “Squawk Box.” The daily spots will highlight AccuWeather's forecasting expertise, while deepening viewer engagement with the most detailed forecasts and powerful weather insights which connect to business, lifestyle and cultural topics.

AccuWeather will also provide the networks with an integrated suite of services, including live and recorded meteorologist appearances, data-driven weather graphics, tailored weather briefings, and editorial content. Versant will have access to AccuWeather's Enterprise API, editorial feed and video content library, enhancing its ability to incorporate weather context and analysis across its news and entertainment programming, the companies reported.

With the Major League Baseball season still in its first month, CNBC has issued its first ever list of the most valuable MLB franchises, with the New York Yankees topping the list at $8 billion, followed by the L.A. Dodgers who are valued at $5.6 billion.

The valuations were calculated by sports valuation expert and CNBC’s senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian. After adjusting for revenue sharing, he noted in an article that “the Yankees posted an MLB-high $705 million in revenue during the 2024 season.”

The Dodgers, who are the reigning World Series champions, generated $701 in revenue, according to CNBC’s calculations. The Yankees and the Dodgers were the only two teams to rack up more than $600 million in revenue according to CNBC.

Ozanian also reported that the Yankees, valued as the MLB’s most valuable team at $8 billion, were the third most valuable sports franchise in the U.S., trailing the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys (worth $11 billion) and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors ($9.4 billion). The NFL’s L.A. Rams were also valued at $8 billion.

While the MLB teams had eye-watering valuations, Ozanian also reported that the “MLB has been facing revenue headwinds from the decline of the regional sports network model and concerns about national TV rights, particularly since February, when ESPN announced it would opt out of its agreement with MLB after this season. A lack of a salary cap in the league has also hurt the bottom line. The NBA, NFL and NHL, all of which have salary caps, boast margins for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, of about 20%. In contrast, MLB, which does not have a salary cap, has an EBITDA margin of 5%, according to CNBC’s calculations.”

The full rankings along with details of each team can be found here.

The full CNBC clip of Ozanian discussing the rankings can be viewed here.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—CNBC has announced distribution deals that will launch its subscription streaming offering CNBC+ on Apple TV and Roku.

The service began rolling out on the platforms on April 2 at the time when CBNC and other cable networks owned by Comcast NBCU are preparing to be spun off into a separate company. With the ongoing decline of the pay TV ecosystem, direct-to-consumers offerings like CNBC+ are expected to be a major part of the spun-off company’s growth prospects.

CNBC reported that subscribers will have non-stop access to CNBC’s business news content by streaming their favorite shows from the U.S., Europe and Asia, live or on demand, for $14.99 per month.

The DTC service offers two CNBC+ livestreams for an enhanced viewer experience. Both streams offer live global programming, including award-winning shows like Squawk Box Asia, Squawk Box Europe and Closing Bell in the U.S., every weekday from market open to market close around the world. Viewers who want more information on their screen can watch the market data livestream, showcasing advanced real-time data meant to complement the opinions and analysis of CNBC anchors and guests through stock charts, news headlines and more, CNBC explained.

CNBC+ also includes an on-demand library of the network’s U.S. programming, including regularly scheduled Business Day shows and special content produced by CNBC such as CNBC Leaders. Subscribers can watch all U.S. Business Day programming on demand for up to seven days after premiere.

“We’re thrilled to expand our distribution of CNBC+ to Apple TV and Roku,” said KC Sullivan, CNBC president. “Giving new and existing audiences another way to engage with our content ensures they never miss a moment of CNBC’s highly valued insights and analysis that matter most for their money.”

Users can get CNBC+ content by downloading the CNBC app through the Apple TV App Store or the Roku Channel Store.

CNBC+ subscribers can also watch CNBC’s coverage on CNBC.com or via the CNBC iOS and Android mobile apps.

CNBC+ is the company’s latest product available for purchase from CNBC’s suite of direct-to-consumer offerings, including CNBC Pro and the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer.

To learn more about CNBC+, visit cnbc.com/subscribe/cnbcplus.

As Comcast prepares to spin off many of its cable networks, NBCUniversal has launched CNBC+, a streaming service priced at $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year.

The new service includes a live feed of the CNBC cable financial news channel, as well as on-demand programming. Unlike other recently launched subscription streaming services, though, it won’t debut with any original programming.

CNBC+ is also available as part of a $599.99 annual All Access tier that includes Jim Cramer’s online investment club and a $299.99 Pro Tier that adds investment tools.

NBCU’s cable-network spinoff is expected to lead to their potential sale, mergers with other companies or increased investments in their streaming operations.

CNBC+ is currently available at CNBC.com and on iOS and Android apps.

More information is available here.

Sinclair Broadcast Group is reportedly considering selling more than 30% of its broadcast stations according to CNBC. 

The broadcast group, which owns 185 stations in 86 markets has already identified about 60 stations it could sell, according to CNBC’s source, who added that the station group has hired Moelis to broker the transactions. The stations are affiliates of Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and the CW and if sold together their average revenue for 2023 and 2024 is an estimated $1.56 billion, according to the source. The stations are located in Minneapolis; Portland, Ore.; Pittsburgh; Austin, Texas and Fresno, Calif., among others. Bloomberg has previously reported that the company is also considering a sale of the Tennis Channel.

Sinclair has not responded to inquiries from TV Tech. 

Sinclair, which reportedly began shopping the stations in February, has lost more than 70% of its market value in the last five years, CNBC said, with its market capitalization at about $975 million with an enterprise value of about $4.7 billion.

Sinclair reported its latest earnings last week and while advertising revenue rose by 4% in Q1 2024,  core advertising excluding political was down by 3% YoY. The station group said it has pre-booked $77 million in political advertising for the second half of the year through Election Day. This is more than three times the $21 million it had booked in the last presidential election cycle as of May 1, 2020 and much more than the $28 million as of May 1, 2022.

Last year Sinclair split itself into two entities, one focused solely on the broadcast stations and the other focused on new tech ventures. In January, its Diamond Sports Group inked a deal with Amazon to keep its troubled Bally Sports regional sports network operating after Diamond filed for bankruptcy in 2023. 

The company is also actively lobbying the FCC to update its local broadcast ownership rules, claiming that current rules hurt local journalism and hinder its ability to maximize the value of its stations. 

NEW YORK—As the 2024 election season began in earnest on Jan. 15 with the Iowa Caucus, NBC News is deploying a new web-based controller of its own making designed to enable its editorial team to respond faster and more easily to changing vote totals, generate on-air graphics and keep viewers better informed as the primary and general election votes unfold.

Sync, under development since December 2022, is an agnostic controller that producers, playback operators and technical directors are using to control the network’s Vizrt render engine. 

“Sync really unifies the way that we look at not only the control room workflow, but also the content creation workflow,” says Marc Greenstein, senior vice president of Design & Production for NBCUniversal News Group.

The initial goal for Sync was to replace the network’s aging election control system. Another priority was to optimize video and graphic playback, he says. However, even before the 2024 election season began, the network realized its December 2023 launch of a CNBC redesign, would be the perfect fit for the new controller.

While perhaps not immediately apparent, the financial network and election coverage share some production commonalities. Both frequently depend on a mix of playlists for any given show. Although the MOS rundown is almost always the priority, there are additional “shared playlists,” in the words of Greenstein, that address important fast developments on an ad hoc basis. 

“I call them ‘shared playlists,’ meaning somebody from the desk is saying, ‘Here are the top 10 movers today. Let's make a playlist and have everyone easily be able to access that,” he says. “For elections, there’s something similar.”

For next-day election coverage, a MOS-based playlist will drive most of the presentation. “But then there'll be either the user-based playlist or the auto-generated playlist on the night itself, meaning the user may say, ‘Hey, let me make a playlist of battleground counties in Iowa. Here are the five counties that we’re watching closely,” explains Greenstein.

“It [the user-based playlist] allows them quick access as the director and the control room teams decide what content they want on air at what moment. Obviously, it’s the same thing for CNBC.”

Sync and Workflow
More broadly, Sync will unify control across the entire NBC news group, opening up several workflow options and beyond, says Greenstein. 

From a workflow perspective it enables the network’s editorial teams to select various templates, organize data in a way that speeds time to air and save presets so that as a story pivots throughout the day coverage can evolve more easily, he says. 

“The problem with traditional automation is that it is totally dictated by a rundown and by MOS abstracts. You definitely have reduced flexibility,” says Greenstein. “The core of Sync was to break from that and say, ‘We can very closely follow the rundown, or we can break [that and allow user-generated playlists on the fly].’”

From an organizational point of view, Sync brings other benefits. Not relying on a single computer in a single physical location thanks to its web-based design offers a degree of disaster recovery as well as the flexibility to work remotely if some unforeseen circumstance makes it impossible to work from the studio, as was the case during COVID, he says.

While currently used to command the render engine, Sync also can control Singular.live graphics and other HTML platforms, as well as additional graphics devices and tape machines. Even future production switcher control isn’t off the table, he says. 

“What we tried to create with Sync was an accordion,” says Greenstein. “If you're doing a really complicated show that requires multiple operators to do things on the fly that aren't part of a planned rundown—meaning there needs to be instantaneous decision making, Sync can scale to have two operators, five operators, 10 operators, all controlling the different parts and pieces hooked into it.”

Conversely for smaller, more formatted shows, Sync could one day be used to execute a more automated control approach. “That is absolutely on the roadmap of things that we’re going to dig in and consider,” he says.

CNBC Redesign
Robert Poulton, vice president and global creative director at CNBC, headed up the redesign of the financial network’s on-air look. Work began in June 2020 on the new design. The network selected Troika Media Group, an outside design and advertising firm that it had worked with in the past, to assist with the design. (Troika filed for bankruptcy in December 2023.)

Deciding what to keep and what to eliminate took about a year, says Poulton. “There are so many elements that are on our screens all the time. So many of them are just fed with data. We were not just building graphics. We were building graphics that are fed with something that adjusts and moves.”

Among the key design goals was developing a clean, minimal aesthetic that delivers actionable information and language seamlessly to viewers so that they can be comfortably engaged 24/7. Poulton and Troika developed a new grid foundation with a square shape acting as the root of the financial network’s design language. The network chose a design placing show branding and time zone clocks above the CNBC logo. Selected colors were bold and reflected the brand’s legacy.

The design also incorporated an updated CNBC logo aligned with the new peacock colors as well as a logo font treatment using Tinker, a font named after former NBC chairman and CEO Grant Tinker.

Augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) use is also part of the redesign, especially to enhance storytelling during earnings season, says Poulton.

“I will say, we've just launched the look. The child's born. Now we've got to raise it, and I think that we'll add on as we as we go along. But really the idea of AR and VR in general is not [that it’s] just a pretty thing to look at, but how can it help us tell the story in a better way?” Poulton asks, rhetorically.

For election coverage, Sync made its debut controlling some of the network’s AR and virtual graphics used to cover the Iowa Caucus, says Greenstein.

Greenstein recalls seeing the new design for the first time. “It was so simple and clean, but it’s also so complicated,” he says. “We really just came to the conclusion; we need to take Sync and pivot to launch this on CNBC to give it [the design] the capability Robert was looking for but not make the workflow a tremendous burden either on the operators or producers.”

Steve Fastook, senior vice president of Technical Operations at CNBC, echoes Greenstein’s observation. “It [the simplicity of CNBC’s redesign] created a lot of complexity under the hood,” says Fastook. “[With] a typical graphics device, an operator would play out graphics, and the TD [technical director] would key them. 

“Well, every single graphic in our system goes back and forth with the production switcher. So, sometimes the production switcher fires Viz and tells it to do an effect. Sometimes Viz tells the switcher. ‘Hey, make this move, change this priority and then play out.’ It’s a very close, intermixed operation. It's quite complicated. But with Sync on top of it all, it's really simple for the operators.”

Deploying Sync first for the rollout of CNBC’s new design should pay dividends for the network’s coverage of the 2024 elections, Greenstein predicts.

“The great part is what we learned from doing CNBC. We're now back into elections with a lot of that knowledge,” he says. “I think you're going to see our election coverage over time get a little more dynamic from the things that we picked up in approaching the CNBC project.”

NEW YORK CITY—CNBC last month debuted its new “Fast Money” studio on the second floor of the Nasdaq MarketSite, a space combining both robotic tracking cameras and tracking LED displays, that’s designed to make it possible for guests and hosts to interact more naturally in a face-to-face setting.

“Anytime you have a panel discussion show with more than one or two hosts, the geometry [of the set] is going to be challenging,” says Steve Fastook, senior vice president of technical and commercial operations at CNBC. 

But the new “Fast Money” set design “forces” everyone “into facing each other, which is really great for this type of show,” he says.

The centerpiece of the 30-foot diameter studio is a circular desk built in sections by NBC Telemundo in Miami, specifically designed to be moved each trading day from an adjacent storage space dubbed “the garage” into the studio.

Building the desk in sections on rollers, however, gives the financial network a way to modify its setup based on how many people will be on set any given day.

“What we’ve always hated is sometimes the traders are remote, and if there are only two or three people at the desk, it was a terrible experience to have a massive piece of furniture,” says Fastook. “Now what happens is if it’s just [show host] Melissa [Lee] or Melissa and two traders, we just bring out a section.”

It also makes it easy for the Nasdaq exchange to transform the space to become its First Trade IPO (Initial Public Offering) Center, says Joseph Brantuk, Nasdaq vice president and chief client officer of corporate platforms.

“Our goal was to try and create the most inclusive sort of celebration of that first trade process, which we call the price discovery process,” he says. “So, we have a similarly sort of shaped podium desk.”

While Nasdaq’s desk is not a full circle, like the CNBC desk, it is on rollers so it can be easily wheeled to the center of the round studio so that “hundreds and hundreds” of people can stand in and around it to experience the first trade and watch price discovery come together, he says.

“I generally am the host,” says Brantuk. “I’ll educate them [those present from the company making its IPO], not only congratulate them on the significant milestone. We really use it [the IPO Center] as a way to engage…[and] create this inclusive experience.”

The exchange also uses the space to interview Nasdaq executives and those of its listed companies “to really help amplify and tell their stories,” he adds.

Design and Build
Nasdaq hired broadcast studio designer Jack Morton to design the studio, as well as for lighting design and its desk and podium used for the IPO center. CNBC’s “Fast Money” desk was designed by John Casey Production Design. 

Work on the studio began in winter 2022. In January, the second floor of the Nasdaq MarketSite building was shut down so work could begin. The project wrapped up in mid-July, and “Fast Money” went live with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in early September, says Fastook.

All production technology in the studio, including cameras and displays, is owned by Nasdaq.

Round and Round Tech
Two technology elements –movable LED displays and a pair of ceiling-mounted robotic cameras—are key to making production in the round possible. The cameras are affixed to Telemetrics Televator pedestals that descend from the company’s Tele-Glide track system. “The cameras can drive all of the way around [the desk]. What that does is it continues to celebrate the circular experience. They drive in a perfect circle that matches the desk and matches the talent so the point of view is always accurate,” says Fastook. 

The cameras are like having two jibs that can go around the studio and raise and lower as needed for shots, he says, adding they respond to control commands in real time and can be flexibly positioned to capture ceiling-height bump shots when needed.

“Honestly, even with a Steadicam, we couldn’t get the shots those Telemetrics get because we couldn’t get high enough—especially those arcing high shots. They look great when you have a bunch of people having a conversation around the table, and you’re able to rotate that shot all the way around. It really brings a nice dynamic to it,” says Fastook.  

Complementing the shots are those from six UHD cameras, each locked down around the studio in a location strategically chosen to eliminate their visibility on-air. Each relies on a robotic head for pan, tilt and zoom. 

Four movable Planar LED displays, together accounting for 700 square feet of display, are mounted on a track near the outer wall of the studio. Track-mounting gives the broadcaster and Nasdaq the ability to position them strategically as needed. 

For instance, behind about 160 degrees of the circular studio are exterior windows giving a view of Time Square in Midtown Manhattan. Having the ability to reposition the panels on the track means the broadcaster can obstruct distracting outdoor elements from shots, says Fastook.

“If there’s a building under construction or some signage that’s too intrusive, we can slide the panels around,” he says.

Another way used to control how intrusive outdoor distractions appear through the windows is polarized lamination from Rosco that makes it possible to adjust the amount of light coming through the windows, such as bright, distracting light from a digital sign across the street, says Fastook.

The LED displays, arranged in a 9 x 16 orientation, can be positioned independently. Rarely are all four locked together because “then it’s just a big screen, and everybody’s got big screens,” he says.

Piano locks on the back sides of the monitors are snugged down a couple of turns to make sure any paired displays are seamless in appearance, says Fastook.

Production crew look in on the studio through a glass wall. There, two operators, one each for the ceiling mounted cameras and the studio cameras, control the cameras and robotics. A “Fast Money” display operator remotely accesses the same Christie Spyder Nasdaq uses to control how its data is displayed around the building and takes control of video, graphics display for the show.

All signals homerun back to CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., where the show is produced. “The main reason for that is the complexity of our on-air data and graphics. Everything else is back at home—clip playout, editing and the content management system,” he says.

The studio was designed to minimize the number of wires used. CNBC’s desk is all wireless, including several lighting elements in the desk, and under control from a wireless DMX controller. 

The broadcaster even considered powering the lights with ENG batteries, but decided against it because there was already a plug underneath the desk position, says Fastook.

Similarly, audio in the studio is wireless; however, there is some wiring in the bottom of the desk in the event of a wireless failure and emergency mics are required, he adds.

Successful Partnership
Nasdaq owns the studio as well as all of the video production technology in use.

“One of the biggest things for us is that this belongs to Nasdaq,” says Fastook. “This actually shows how good the partnership is that they built something so incredible.”

Brantuk echoes the sentiment. “This studio highlights a great partnership between Nasdaq and CNBC when we think about the technology. But when our customers and our issuers cognizant that, they expect to see cutting edge technology and our working with key partners like CNBC.” 

Despite dire predictions that its streaming capabilities would be strained by the massive numbers of viewers watching the first Sunday broadcasts of the 2023-2024 NFL season, it appears that YouTube TV’s launch of its NFL Sunday Ticket went off with minimal glitches. 

Sunday provided the ultimate test for Google’s YouTube TV with millions of fans tuning into the popular service, which offers all NFL games for $500 per season per subscriber (with a variety of discounts). Google inked the $14 billion deal late last year to carry the subscription on its YouTube TV; the service had been exclusive to DirecTV for nearly 30 years. 

Although Google has not released subscription numbers for NFL Sunday Ticket, DirectTV had an estimated 2 million subscribers for the service before losing it to Google. 

Fans were skeptical that YouTube’s streaming service would be up to the task of replicating the technology enabled by DirecTV’s satellite service that allowed the provider to broadcast NFL games with minimal latency. For several years, since the Super Bowl began being streamed, reports indicated that viewers watching the big game on a traditional pay TV service or antenna were catching the action up to a minute earlier than those watching online.

(Read more: Low Latency Distribution: What Does It Mean to Video Streamers?)

CNBC was among those wringing their hands over the prospect of higher than normal delays. “As thousands of football fans fill stadiums across America to see the first Sunday of NFL action, millions more will watch at home and at bars—as much as one minute later,” the network predicted last week.

CNBC based much of its expectations on previous Super Bowl reports as well as experts who noted that due to the technical differences between the efficiency of satellite or broadcast technology—and the “one to one” aspect of streaming—online viewers could end up finding out about a touchdown as much as a minute after the broadcast. Echoing tech experts it interviewed for its report, CNBC said  “the delay ‘Sunday Ticket’ subscribers will face on Sunday can’t be helped and is just the reality of current technology.”

But Google defended its technology, citing the worldwide popularity of its YouTube service. “Overall, YouTube TV is built on the infrastructure that powers YouTube, and reliably serves billions of playback every day, the company told NBC News. “The YouTube TV team is working on building a high-quality Sunday Ticket experience.”

Although there were some issues with YouTube TV's multiview feature, in the end, the handwringing was the most part, all for naught, since technical issues didn’t become the headlines many had feared.

“Wow, Sunday Ticket on YouTube is amazing,” one user wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), Yahoo News reports. “On my phone, the broadcast delay is only 10 seconds… behind AN ANTENNA.” 

“Top notch work moving NFL Sunday Ticket over,” wrote another fan on X. “Truly… No hassles AT ALL. Logging in has been easy, no delays, no weird ‘verify your current playback area’ messages.”

Shortly after games began on the east coast on Sunday, Matt Infante, chief operating officer of media company Pro Football Network tweeted that “NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube not showing the kind of delay that many feared. So far.”

Streaming expert Dan Rayburn praised Google for its first weekend performance, describing the outcome as a “touchdown” for YouTube, but warning that the company isn’t out of the woods.

“I’m rooting for the Google and YouTube TV teams to have great execution every week throughout the year,” he wrote on his Streaming Media Blog. “If they can keep any technical issues to a minimum, and short-lived, plus provide accurate and timely support, it helps the entire streaming industry. If YouTube TV has any widespread problems with streaming the NFL Sunday Ticket, the backlash from many will be that streaming is not ready for primetime and can’t be used as a replacement to broadcast TV distribution and that would hurt the entire industry.”

And while YouTube TV appeared to escape unscathed from its first test, it's a mixed bag for traditional TV with  ESPN, ABC and more than  20 other Disney channels having been pulled from Charter's Spectrum TV service; more than 200 network affiliates owned or managed by Nexstar Media Group blacked out on DirecTV and a new impasse occurring late last week when Dish TV removed subscribers' access to 37 local Hearst channels in 27 markets in a third  carriage dispute. 

New York—Moving CNBC’s “Mad Money” and Jim Cramer from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., to the New York Stock Exchange in July may have seemed like the natural thing to do given the popularity and nearly 40-year presence of the show’s host in the trading community, but making the move a reality required far more than installing new production and control room tech.

A product of close cooperation between the broadcaster and the New York Stock Exchange, the project saw a major renovation of the 119-year-old building in an extremely high-profile area—a spot on the floor adjacent to where dignitaries ring the opening and closing bell to begin and end each trading day. 

As a result, all work had to be done in relatively short bursts, well-defined windows of time after the close each trading day so everything appeared back to normal when specialists and floor brokers entered.

“The build took a long time because we had to work at night. Nothing could happen during the day,” recalls Steve Fastook, vice president of technical operations at CNBC. “No matter what we did at night, it had to be clean, put away, covered and look like the floor during the day.”

The project was conceived of in December 2021, and work began in April 2022. After a lengthy build, the new set made its debut July 18.

While building new sets and studios is nothing new to Fastook and the CNBC team, the project at the stock exchange was unique. Unlike others, the NYSE build required extensive renovation to portions of a national landmark.

“So, everything had to be different,” says Fastook. But despite the constraints and challenges, moving the show to the New York Stock Exchange simply made sense because, in Fastook’s words, Cramer “is part of the fabric of that place. It’s Jim’s natural habitat.”

Scope and Renovation
To make it possible for the host to work from the exchange and best use his talents required two spaces: the main set on the floor of the exchange where Cramer tapes “Mad Money” and a smaller space, dubbed Studio M (for “Mad Money),” away from the floor where the host can conduct private interviews with CEOs and other newsmakers who potentially might move the market if their interviews were overheard during a trading session.

John Casey Production Design was responsible for the look. “The set pays homage to its location,” says Fastook. Designed with the color palette and textures of the exchange, the set also showcases the history of the stock exchange and of Cramer. 

For instance, a reporter’s cap used circa 1915 on the exchange to differentiate between media and traders is displayed in one of the on-set trophy cases, as are mechanical stock tickers. Items meaningful to the host and his history are displayed on the set as well, including a football helmet of his NFL favorite, the Philadelphia Eagles.

The project coincided with the beginning of the New York Stock Exchange’s own large-scale renovation of the trading floor. Part of the undertaking required transforming the exchange’s historic wooden trading posts. For Cramer’s morning show, Post Nine was reworked into a modern glass structure with Planar flat display panels, says Fastook.

The preliminary work also entailed major repair and restoration of an original marble wall that now serves as the background of the set. “This marble is about 120 years old and had holes drilled in it. It had chips taken out. It was discolored from being hidden by the wood that covered it for 100 years,” he says.

A group of “amazing restoration” specialists hired by the NYSE brought new life to the old marble, “returning it back to its original color, filling the gaps and repairing the holes,” he says.

Workers with other specialties bought in by the exchange played important roles as well. “We worked with the New York Stock Exchange’s contractors, primarily ADCO Electrical, on things like technical infrastructure, power and fiber drops,” he says.

Prepping the area for the new set also required a modification of the exchange floor. While portions of the sets and infrastructure were being readied offsite, the exchange removed a trading post to make way for the main set. 

“That left this really ugly looking floor that had been cut and built over. Everything had to be restored,” he says, adding that the necessary work on the floor created an opportunity to accommodate Cramer’s preferred way to work.

“Jim likes to work in a 360-degree fashion, that’s why we shoot it with a Steadicam mostly,” says Fastook. “He likes to move around. He has a chart on one side and the sound-effects board someplace else.”

Fastook, however, did not want an umbilical tether coming out of the desk that Cramer would have to think about whenever he moved. The solution required a master carpenter who works for the exchange to fashion a special piece of flooring that matched the existing floor and lifts out to accommodate the cabling when the space is transformed each trading day from part of the trading floor to the main set for shows. “When the desk (Cramer’s) is put away during trading hours, it looks like a beautiful wood floor, and when we open it up, Jim’s desk is freestanding,” he explains.

The ability to ready the space quickly for television was a major design consideration. “In about 20 minutes, we can transform the trading floor into a full-out TV production set,” says Fastook. “That happens every day.”

Set lighting illustrates the challenge of the fast turnaround while working within the constraints of a national landmark.

“Jim isn’t sitting in a chair, so he doesn’t have key lights and two back lights,” he says. “The whole area had to be lit so Jim could traverse around the set.

“At the same time, the ceiling is 110 feet high. So, we had to build an arrangement with a massive truss [and a smaller truss] that could drive down on motors and then drive back up on motors to be out of the way for New York Stock Exchange functions.”

Lowering the lighting truss over the set each day, however, raised the possibility lights might not be in the precise location needed for the show. To solve the problem quickly, four laser lights attached to make finetuning positioning fast.

“The lighting director flicks the laser lights when he is ready for the trusses to come down. He watches them intersect, and he knows he is perfectly aligned,” says Fastook.

Another key consideration in the lighting design of the trusses was the environment in which they must function.  “Lighting was really difficult there. The room was lit for people, so it’s 3200 degrees K with all kinds of other color temperatures flashing in from monitors everywhere,” he says.

The overarching lighting concern, however, was making sure the trusses did not look out of place during the trading day. “Things had to be the right color. So, the trusswork is all gold, and the wiring had to be hidden. Everything had to be really buttoned up, which made it difficult,” he says.

Besides the Steadicam, the show, produced in 1080i HD, is shot with cameras mounted on two robotic pedestals on either side of the set. One of six robotic cameras mounted to Post Nine where Cramer does is morning show turns around and shoots the Lightning Round segment of “Money,” says Fastook.

Studio M and More
Studio M, where Cramer conducts private interviews during the trading day, is a much smaller space off the floor of the exchange. Its centerpiece is a 109-inch 0.9mm Planar screen, and an 80-inch Planar touchscreen that displays a telestrator for the host to explain stories. The background combines video and artwork of the front of the exchange. Doors and windows separate the studio from the floor to ensure privacy, says Fastook.

To support the technical requirements of the new sets, the broadcaster and the exchange converted two phone booths used “in the old days when traders needed to have a private conversation off the floor” into a space for racks and equipment, he says.

“They were made out of this dark wood, and they had frosted glass that we couldn’t bear to throw away,” says Fastook.

Carefully removing and deconstructing the phone booths, Fastook’s team preserved the original material and fashioned a wooden panel that, when removed, reveals the racks of infrastructure supporting the sets. The team repurposed the glass as well, backlighting it with LEDs. “It’s beautiful. It is off to the side, but you can see it on set,” he adds.

Different goals guided how audio from both sets would be treated. For the main set, the idea was to “celebrate the sound on the floor,” although trading is finished by the time the show is produced so the din is lower than during the trading day. For Studio M, the structure of the exchange “pretty well insulated” the space from those sounds during the day, but to complete fully accomplish acoustic goals CNBC built “double-thick” walls, says Fastook.

“It’s really not a matter of noise during production; it’s to prevent people from listening in,” he says.

The project also required installation of a new 128 x 128 routing switcher to replace the existing 64 x 64 unit. However, delivery of the router, as well as other parts and pieces of the new infrastructure, has been plagued by supply chain interruptions. For the moment, CNBC is using the existing router and patches, he says, adding, “even things like light fixtures, we had to go to multiple vendors to source.”

CNBC shares control of the existing router –and will of the new router—with the exchange. “Basically, everything on the floor is a router source and destination. We can feed the big wall; we can feed the vertical wall; and we can feed the wall in the back to telestrators,” he says.

When not in use by CNBC, the exchange takes control of the router, feeding its digital signage system into the matrix to route to the displays used during shows for the broadcaster’s productions from the exchange, he says.

Overall, the project and the sets represent a highlight in Fastook’s career and a feather in the cap of CNBC. “We’re really proud of the classiness of the set and that you see that you’re on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange while also saying it’s Jim’s space.”

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—CNBC announced today that the network's popular "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" (M-F, 6PM ET) will move to the New York Stock Exchange this starting July 18, Cramer's show will originate from a new studio at the NYSE, broadcasting nightly after the markets close.

Currently the show is broadcast from CNBC’s  New Jersey headquarters, so moving the show to the heart of Wall St. should make it easier for the financial movers and shakers to appear on the show. The new set, which is being built exclusively for "Mad Money," will incorporate the unique architectural elements of the NYSE in a sleek and modern package. Situated on the trading floor next to the bell podium, the new studio will bring viewers into Cramer's world with interactive state-of-the-art technology and the iconic "Mad Money" soundboard. 

Additionally, an updated graphics package will be introduced featuring a new color palette, contemporary look and feel and a more streamlined approach to delivering content and information. 

"I came to Wall Street forty years ago and fell in love with it instantly," said Cramer. "The New York Stock Exchange is the pinnacle of capitalism, and I am ecstatic and elated to be back home."

"Jim Cramer and the New York Stock Exchange are two of the most recognizable names on Wall Street," said Mark Hoffman, CNBC Chairman. "Jim is always pushing for new and engaging ways to share his investing insights, from 'Squawk on the Street' in the morning to this year's launch of the CNBC Investing Club to today's announcement marking an exciting new chapter for the 'Mad Money' franchise."

"The trading day is framed by the NYSE's Opening and Closing Bells, but anyone who sees Jim come through our turnstiles in the early morning hours knows how closely he tracks the open," said Lynn Martin, President of the NYSE. "With 'Mad Money' at its new home on our floor, we can't wait to see Jim wrap the day for CNBC viewers in his peerless style from the world's greatest financial stage."

In addition to "Mad Money," Cramer is Co-Anchor of the 9am ET hour of "Squawk on the Street" (M-F, 9am-11am ET) and launched the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, a subscription product aimed at helping all investors build long-term wealth in the stock market.  

The move is not unprecedented for CNBC, which opened a studio on the NYSE trading floor ten years ago.

SAN FRANCISCO—CNBC’s new Steuart Tower studio in San Francisco may not be the biggest or most expensive studio revamp the network has ever taken on, but what it may lack in scale the 1 Market Studio makes up for in technical innovation, especially when it comes to minimizing latency, and appealing design.

“We launched a show a couple of months ago called ‘Tech Check,’ and being a tech show we felt we really had to have a real, legitimate presence out there [in San Francisco],” says Steve Fastook, senior vice president of operations and engineering at CNBC. 

The business-news cable network chose to expand its existing San Francisco bureau, originally built about a decade ago, transforming a rather simple Flash Studio into an attractive space taking full advantage of its seventh-floor view of the Bay Bridge and an appealing set design by John Casey Production Design. 

Lowering Latency
It’s the exception rather than the rule for a full production crew to run shows from 1 Market Studio. Rather, most of the network’s production assets and production control technology reside in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., at CNBC headquarters, says Fastook. So, reducing latency between the 1 Market Studio location and New Jersey was essential.

CNBC upgraded its bandwidth between the locations from 1Gb/s to 10Gb/s and installed Cisco IP video gateways supporting Hitless Merge and Evertz JPEG 2000 encoders and decoders. “We went from a roundtrip before we did the project of about a second and a half to now a roundtrip of a quarter of a second,” he says.

From a production point of view, the nearly non-existent latency brings a natural feel to the on-camera give and take between contributors. “[With] cross talks, you don’t even know they’re not in the same room. That’s huge for us because it’s natural conversation,” says Fastook. “What we wanted to be able to have was cross talks between anchors in New York, New Jersey and San Francisco.”

However, what happens on screen is only a part of the story. Off camera, the ultra-low latency means operators in Englewood Cliffs can control the three Vinten robotic heads supporting the new 4K-upgradeable Sony box cameras with Canon lenses at 1 Market Studio as if they were in the studio.  

“That’s sort of the theme we’ve been taking. If you’re doing a show and it’s coming from a particular location, you grab the cameras at that location and you can control them like you are there,” he explains. “With the connectivity being so upgraded, that control is fluid.”  

In a similar fashion, the low latency helps to enable CNBC to run audio remotely from Englewood Cliffs. CNBC installed Calrec audio boards and the Calrec RP1 remote-controlled processing engine. 

“If you acquire a microphone in Englewood Cliffs that’s out in the studio, it’s the same as acquiring a microphone in San Francisco. All of the mix-minus and everything else can be assigned and followed,” says Fastook, who notes the approach made it unnecessary to add another audio operator.

“Everything comes back homerun through this RP1. You could look at your board and see four inputs from the studio mics in New Jersey, two from the stock exchange, two from the NASDAQ and three from San Francisco, and it really makes no difference. That really enabled three- and four-party conversations to really be as real as possible.” 

The new studio’s lighting system, like the lighting systems in all CNBC remote locations, is controllable from Englewood Cliffs. Fastook relied on CNBC ENG crew members to design and install the setup, which consists of LED fixtures, including Rosco studio lighting and large Litepanels LED studio lights.

Using LED fixtures was important because Steuart Tower is an office building. “Our ceiling height is a little bit higher than normal office space, but there’s no great height, and the air conditioning is really designed for office space, so the LED lighting was critical,” says Fastook.

While remote operation is integral to the 1 Market Studio workflow, local robotic camera, lighting and audio control are also available when needed, he adds. 

The redesigned space also relies on an electronic shade system on every window. Used throughout the day and prominently featured during “TechCheck,” which premiered in April, the space is subjected to the sun as it traverses the sky. 

“The sun comes up in the corner of the building, and it sets on the other side of the building,” says Fastook, “and we’re on through the whole horizon of the day.” 

Working with Broadcast Blinds, CNBC installed electronic shades on every window—whether they’re fully behind scenery or partially blocked by scenery. As the sun moves, the ND filters used as shades can be dialed in and out depending on the time of day.

COVID And The Studio
Like so many other things in broadcasting and society at large, expanding 1 Market Studio was not immune to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of the studio, however, its impact was both positive and negative. 

Typically renovating the small bureau to a 2,500-square-foot remote studio complete with a custom set would have required Fastook and crew to restrict their work to overnights and long weekends, making sure the space was ready to use when the broadcast schedule resumed every day. That start-and-stop approach would have required two months to complete this studio upgrade. However, COVID changed the equation, he says.

“Because of COVID, the bureau had been closed. We were able to go in and do everything we needed to do, and the whole project was completed in over a little less than three weeks, including the set, which took at least a week,” he says.

However, the new studio was not exempt from supply chain problems—particularly chip shortages—that are plaguing the economy during this stage of the pandemic. While Fastook made his completion deadline for the project, the job was “pushed to the limit,” he says.

“It really was a little bit less about the broadcast equipment, and a little a little bit more about the traditional switch gear—mostly Cisco-type stuff—that really got hit by the chip shortage,” says Fastook, who attributes getting the job done on time to being in the queue for equipment “pretty early in the process,” ensuring a place near the front of the line when the crunch began to ease.

Engineering for the studio renovation, which Fastook estimates cost between $150,000 and $200,000, was done by CNBC engineers, and the actual work was completed by an implementation team from NBCU.

While production from the renovated space supports CNBC’s 1080i HD needs today, the three Sony box cameras selected for the studio are 4K-capable, preparing 1 Market Studio for the future.

“We’re getting to the point where the amortization of those cameras may fall into our 4K transition—although I don’t know what that is, we haven’t really decided,” says Fastook. “It’s really more driven by the desire for it to be 4K than the content. This isn’t sports—that’s a whole different thing.”

But as the rest of world adopts 4K, there will come a point where transitioning to 4K may be unavoidable. When that day comes, 1 Market Studio will be ready.

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.—Broadcast news allows viewers to see the important events happening around the world. CNBC’s new program, “The News With Shepard Smith,” has taken that idea and made it the focal point of its set, which features a bevy of video monitors designed to present the news in flexible and innovative ways.

Smith will premiere the new set next week (Oct. 26-Oct. 30), after using a temporary set for the first few weeks since the show debuted, the result of what Steve Fastook, senior vice president of operations and engineering at CNBC, described as “the most difficult set we’ve ever built,” not just because of the intricacies of the set’s tech, but because of the forced adjustments caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

THE BUILD

CNBC announced that Shepard Smith was joining the network on July 8, which with the show debuting in the fall, called for an extremely fast-paced construction, especially considering the average build time for a set, according to Fastook, is 35 weeks. And for what is expected to be one of the network’s marquee programs, it couldn’t just be any old set.

“This is probably the largest single set we’ve ever encountered,” said Fastook. “It’s technically complex; very, very intricate; video everywhere.”

As the first set built by CNBC during the COVID era, the process had to be adapted to make sure that everyone was safe and followed the proper protocols. This ranged from using two set shops—Showman Fabricators in Bayonne, N.J., and Sacks Exhibitors in Andover, Mass.—to build the different set pieces, and having specific credentials for those working on the set as they entered CNBC’s headquarters, in addition to the typical temperature checks and other social distancing efforts.

The actual build took place in Studio B at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood, a 60x60-foot space, which had to be gutted. One of the bigger projects in the build involved cutting the lighting grid to build a custom structure to hold the 15,000-pound metal rig that would be used to hold the set’s main video monitor.

COVID safety protocols were also incorporated into the final design and build of the set, with the backstage area designed so that a console could be operated while still maintaining 6 feet of distance between crew members. 

THE CENTERPIECE

The defining element of the set is the video monitor that is held up by the specially designed rig previously mentioned. With in-studio guests not a reliable option currently, Fastook said they had to develop a compelling way to visually present the correspondents from all over the world. The solution, five vertical, life-size monitors that can either work together to show a single image or video, display five individual videos or any combination in between. 

The individual monitors, which are all 1.2mm pitch direct LED screens, can also be moved mechanically to create a desired look, Fastook explains. The plan is to be able to move them on camera for the viewers to actually see. The center monitor is designed so it can emerge away from the other monitors 17 feet in six or seven seconds, allowing the monitor to show a correspondent as if they are coming out to meet Smith.

“Imagine the California wildfires,” said Fastook. “The visuals of the fire fill up the wall, and then the center monitor transitions to the correspondent and moves away from the rest of the wall and toward you.

“This is probably one of the coolest things that we’re going to do,” he continues. “At the end of the day, it’s all about being immersed in the stories.”

Fastook does acknowledge that the full motion of the monitor is likely not going to be used right away, as many elements of the new set will be introduced over the next few weeks as the crew gets comfortable using them.

The immersion goes beyond just the main video monitor, though. There are five additional vertical monitors placed throughout the studio and the windows wall, the wall in the back of the set that is made up of three bands.

“This set is all video,” said Fastook. “Anywhere you look, there’s video elements. So every single shot, not only does the team have to plan the shot, but they have to plan what’s in the monitors behind and they have to make clean transitions in the monitors behind. So the level of complexity producing on this set is multiple times greater than just a traditional set.”

‘NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS’

While the monitor may be what initially draws people’s eyes, Fastook takes pride that their goal of creating a high-tech, innovative set has been met. “[E]verybody that has come across it in the building has come in saying, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’”

In addition to the monitor, the studio includes an array of LED lights that can offer a reported 17,000 color combinations. There are additional stage and open areas on the set that will allow for different setups for guests and presentations when COVID restrictions lift. And, with all of this high-tech equipment, Fastook says that Studio B uses only 10% of the power that CNBC’s Studio C, which is the home of “Mad Money,” does, despite being a larger set.

“I have to say I’m so proud of my team,” Fastook said. “This is the most difficult set we’ve ever built, for obvious reasons—it was fast scheduled and COVID—and highly intricate and highly technical. Every single person on my team and everyone we worked with really went above and beyond on this one. It’s a great moment for them. I’m really, really proud of them.”

See a timelapse of the set's construction below:

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J.—While no one could truly have prepared for the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had across the world and in the broadcast industry, cable business network CNBC’s efforts to prepare for a wide range of outcomes has helped it adjust as quickly as possible to the “new normal” for both at-home remote productions and its crew still working in studio.

For Steve Fastook, senior vice president of technical operations at CNBC, creating a business continuity plan for situations like a flooded building or a total power outage—i.e., anything that could cause a facility to become inoperable—helped the network deploy a  strategy to battle the spread of COVID-19 while still offering CNBC’s daily reporting.

Nearly 80% of CNBC’s staff is working remotely, according to Fastook, including 40 on-air contributors in the U.S. that have received production kits for at-home production; 10 international contributors have also received kits.

“We wanted to get as many people at home as we could, just out of abundance of caution,” said Fastook.

These kits are based around the Padcaster platform, which CNBC gave on-air talent to use for at-home broadcasts. The Padcaster features a front-end lens for higher quality and adapters for the use of lapel or shotgun mics. The Padcaster is then mounted on a desk-type or floor-type mounted tripod. LED lights were also provided for at-home use—“It would have been very difficult to do this in the days of tungsten lights, because they were so hot,” Fastook commented.

When it’s time to broadcast, anchors can connect for a livestream either through their Wi-Fi or through hard wired Ethernet, though most are doing Ethernet to avoid any potential issues with Wi-Fi outages.

“There’s a little bit of variation for the setup, because these are people’s homes and they have their own different situation,” Fastook said.

Staff are getting more comfortable with the setup and improving on the look of their new surroundings. Fastook says they are in some cases putting large TVs that play a loop of video in the background of shots.

The other 20% are employees that are still coming into the office and working in CNBC’s studios and control rooms, though that setup has also changed to try and keep everything as safe as possible.

Of the three control rooms housed in the CNBC main facility, two are currently operational and are used on a rotating schedule with cleaning occurring throughout the day. At the beginning and end of the day, an independent cleaner that is able to work specifically with technical equipment—using water-free disinfectant—sterilizes the control rooms. A show’s team—down to four or five from the normal 15 to 20—then works in one control room, keeping individuals 6-feet away from each other. Afterwards, that room is cleaned again by CNBC staff while the second control room is used by another show. This process is then repeated.

In addition, show teams have been assigned specific conference rooms or work areas that only they can work in, while editors coming in have their own individual rooms and connect through a VPN tunnel.

Fastook says the CNBC team is adjusting to their new circumstances, but many are eager to get back in the office.

“I’m really proud of our teams,” he said. “Whether you’re home or whether you’re in the control rooms, morale has been fantastic. Our folks, this is what they do, this is their mission. I’m really, really proud of my team.”

PLUS: Remote Broadcast Ops Now Needed for Broadcasters, Zixi Finds

Fastook doesn’t think that it is likely that CNBC will continue remote production at nearly this kind of scale when the pandemic is over, but he does see it as a next step in the network’s evolution of adding value in the form of more guests.

“All of these technologies, they may not have to be our anchors that are at home, but we’re definitely going to be able to have more and more guests,” he said. “But also, we’re really comfortable now that our business continuity plans are solid.”

NEW YORK—All NBCUniversal subscribers, regardless of package, will be given access to the broadcaster's full range of national news coverage to help provide critical information during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Working with its distribution partners, all NBCU video customers can now view CNBC and MSNBC either through their video provider or on the CNBC and MSNBC online platforms, on an authenticated basis. In addition, the 24/7 online streaming service NBC News Now will be free to viewers and feature content from NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC.

Another effort that NBCU is undertaking for both NBC and Telemundo owned stations is the streaming of local newscasts and coronavirus-related press conferences for free and unauthenticated on desktop and mobile web apps.

“NBCUniversal is committed to providing a public service during the coronavirus pandemic, generating awareness and ensuring all U.S. households receive the latest news and information on the evolving global situation,” NBCU said in its announcement.

Fox announced last week that it was also planning to broaden its news offerings for viewers. 

NEW YORK—Wall Street runs at a blazing speed, so it is fitting that CNBC’s “Squawk Box” can do the same. Now residing in a street front studio at the NASDAQ building in Times Square, “Squawk Box’s” new studio was designed to set up and break down in a New York minute.

“Squawk Box” wanted its new location to be in the heart of the action, according to Steve Fastook, senior vice president of technical operations for CNBC. However, while being at the NASDAQ studio allows for viewers to see people as they come into work every morning in the background of the show, it also means that “Squawk Box” can’t be idle when the cameras are turned off at 9 a.m. The show’s new studio also serves as the studio used for ringing the opening bell at 9:30, meaning “Squawk Box” has to be completely cleared in a half-an-hour. That was the motivation for most of new studio features.

The most visible of these is the new desk, weighing in at an estimated 3,000 pounds. “Beautiful and portable don’t necessarily go together,” said Fastook. “The more beautiful it is the heavier it is, the heavier it is the harder it is to move. So we had to come up with something that would be durable enough that we could move around every day.” To do so, the desk is made of plexi-glass and the crew has designed a special protocol that enables them to move it quickly and safely as to maintain its pristine look.

Contributing to that look is the fact that CNBC also eliminated some of the clutter that can typically be found on desks with monitors, PCs and other devices. The desk was built to house all of those needs underneath the glass, with a special design that allows for all of it to fit and work with the desk’s unique 57-degree angles.

Putting elements of the set at a 57-degree angle was a huge part of the design for “Squawk Box,” as monitors at the back of the set are also configured to incorporate that angle. Again, though, with NASDAQ coming in after them and using a standard 16x9 framework for the monitors in the studio, “Squawk Box” had to come up with another adjustable solution. “There’s a custom bracket that changes the height and rotates [the monitors] from 57-degrees to zero literally at a push of a button that unlocks it,” said Fastook.

Filming from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., the morning light also changes rapidly throughout the show and throughout the year, so to handle those quick adjustments, “Squawk Box” implemented a polarizing filter that’s embedded in the glass in the back of the studio as well as the front of the camera. The camera filter is on a motorized spinning wheel controlled in the video room that is capable of making the set look darker or brighter to balance with the available sunlight. Consisting of all LED lights, the studio also has flexibility with the color of its lights based on season or time of day.

After nearly an eight month process, the new “Squawk Box” studio debuted Wednesday, Nov. 15. The desk was built by Showman Fabricators and the Lighting Design Group lit the studio.

CNBC uses the combined natural and manmade beauty of the San Francisco skyline to provide a backdrop to its “Squawk on the Street” daily program.

SAN FRANCISCO—Curse that light.

It wasn’t the technology, or the infrastructure or the rabidly competitive real estate market that was flummoxing the engineers and producers building a brand new broadcast facility in downtown San Francisco.

It was the light. Milky and murky, sometimes filtered by thick grey fog, sometimes glinting straight through the window, the developers of the new CNBC broadcast facility struggled with that ever-changing light as they worked to build a new broadcast facility in downtown San Francisco.

Built to serve as the network’s West Coast technology bureau, the newly built CNBC@1Market facility finally found its ideal location. Now it had to solve two challenges: ensuring that this facility could be up and running in the wee morning hours when most West Coasters are still in bed. And that the devilish lighting caused by San Francisco’s microclimate could be slayed.

“We needed to find the best space in San Francisco, something with a beautiful view that was easily accessible,” said Steven Fastook, senior vice president of technical and commercial operations for CNBC in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. The resultant 8,000-squarefoot bureau is situated in a building at the foot of Market Street in the financial district of this city, just steps away from the namesake Ferry Building and the enormous San Francisco Bay.

That’s also where the problems began.

The new CNBC studio at CNBC@1Market

The CNBC broadcast day starts at 6 a.m. on the East Coast, and by the time the channel’s tech coverage begins, by about 6 a.m. Pacific, “there’s a huge swing of sun activity,” Fastook said, including a constantly changing mix of streaky sun and glinty reflections directly off the Bay Bridge into the studio.

“The sun is a challenge, the fog is a challenge,” he said. “The biggest challenge is to be able to have the inside studio and outside look good together, to see the talent look good and warm in both places.”

The largest studio—a three-camera space with the bay as a backdrop—includes three Sony BRC-H900 pan-and-tilt cameras with 14:1 lenses, Autocue prompters and lights, lots and lots of lights. The tricky lighting outside was mastered with a mix of lighting and drapery inside.

“[Indoor] lighting was a real saving grace for us,” Fastook said. “We can adjust color temperature on the lights to an intensity that you’d associate [with a certain time of day].” The studio is using ellipsoidal lights from the Italian firm Coemar, Creamsource fill lights from the Australian firm Outsight, and L-5 LED lights from ARRI. Cameras in the large studio were outfitted with a series of natural density filters.

In addition to the fully outfitted studio, a smaller “Flash Studio” was built nearby for breaking news and last-minute interviews. That room includes a Sony BRC-H900 robotic cam, Azzurro camera production system, Tektronix WFM7020 waveform monitor and Tekskil on-camera unit with Autocue’s QMaster software for teleprompting. A 75-inch Samsung plasma HD set is used to showcase live feeds, graphic elements or a taped loop of the bay outside.

The bureau also has access to an outdoor terrace with a view of the San Francisco Ferry Building. Power, fiber and connectivity were built into the outdoor terrace to run lighting and Panasonic P2 cameras.

ONE PIPELINE

The new CNBC facility in San Francisco is using two Avid edit bays running Media Composer and using a GV Stratus. Graphics packages, like those being created by freelance editor Rory Keenan (left) CNBC’s Director of Technical Operations Mario Schettino, are stored locally on Avid ISIS servers.
Behind the scenes, the bureau installed two Avid editing suites with 64 TB of shared ISIS storage. A four-channel Avid AirSpeed server is being used for local playout, with a Grass Valley STRATUS content management system being used to transport content to the CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs. “So if I’m sitting in San Francisco and I need to do an edit and go back to an archive, I’m able to open the STRATUS, search for it and pull it back,” Fastook said.

The Avids have allowed the bureau to ensure the workflow was working as intended, said John Chiala, technical manager for CNBC San Francisco. “We wanted to streamline the way that the bureau operates.”

Technology in the backroom includes a set of Miranda and Wohler routers, Fujitsu transmitters and receivers, a Textronix SPG8000 video signal generator, Miranda Densité frame syncs, and RTS intercoms.

What’s also unique about the bureau, Fastook said, is that everything comes back to headquarters via dual 100 Mbps pipes that pass through NBCU Los Angeles and then on to the East Coast. The network can carry eight HD SDI feeds, data from the Avid editing rooms, remote camera control functionality and intercom connections. “All of that transport comes back to on that same pipeline,” he said. It was designed so that everything that is happening in San Francisco can be seen in real time from the network’s headquarters in New Jersey.

“If it’s early or urgent, and I don’t have anyone sitting at the desk in San Francisco, I can turn on all three cameras from here,” Fastook said, the first time that CNBC has engineered a bureau with full studio and camera control. The engineering side—which includes transmission, camera control, diagnostics, and distribution and fiber gear—can be monitored and managed from 3,000 miles away. “I want to be able to see every resource that we have for CNBC in one place,” he said, so that pipeline flow can be monitored and adjusted.

Fastook pointed to CNBC’s cadre of guests and contributors as the reason that the engineering behind the West Coast bureau needed to be as interconnected as possible. To a large extent, IP technology is facilitating that move. “IP technology is a huge enabler,” he said. “It’s changed the capabilities.”

It’s a setup that CNBC may replicate again, as the channel considers installing a similar IP system at CNBC Europe and Asia. “Imagine being able to scan the content library and use it [in other bureaus as needed,]” Fastook said. “It’s working out well.”