Seldom in recent memory have I been so reduced to cringe mode as I was this morning watching the new CNBC channel Africa half hour broadcast at o6.00 hours. I had a sense of time warp.
CNBC is my channel of choice for business news and has been for many years. It is slick and as professional as one gets anywhere on daytime TV. This new SA local insert has to compete in my mind with the razor sharp interrogative style of Maria Bartiromo, for instance, and a hot shot collection of slick commentators from around the planet, and what I saw this morning was neither impressive nor convincing. I felt that I was watching a collection of nervous school kids delivering their first prom night presentations. Worse I had the sense they were all in short trousers with ‘Dagwood’ hairstyles. I understand that i have had some issues adjusting to the new blog format represented by amagama but i do this for fun... CNBC is supposed to be a professional operation. This production had all the rehearsed preparation of a charity amdram production at the SPCA.
One hopes that it improves as they all gain confidence, but the auguries are not good. Saturday’s launch of CNBC’s new Africa offering, with a collection of carefully scripted and staged questions to our beloved ‘Thabo the Great’ already reeked of feudal servility. "Sir here's a difficult question that we have prepared for you could you please give us some wisdom, and we'll make sure no one asks anything that isn't cleared beforehand." This morning’s collection of “suits” was not much better and had all the credibility of a collection of Jules Street used car salesmen with bad haircuts, wearing the contemporary version of safari suits replete with long socks with combs stuck inside nogal. Our pair of giggling, stuttering presenters sounded as if they had no idea what a stock market index, for instance, represented, nor were they intending to find out. Naïve was never this embarrassing.
CNBC runs a series of these "local interest" inserts on a Saturday morning with diverse entries from Dubai, Turkey, Russia and China each in turn less intelligible than the one before. I submit myself to them from time to time when i missed some of the MclLachlan group at 06.00 and want to catch the re-run. At the moment I would say this new Africa channel ranks on about a par with the Russian insert, which is also characterised by servile presentation and awkward questions... One always has the sense [with the Russian insert] that a hit man is waiting outside the studio ready to "take out" any excessively nosy interviewers...
CNBC prides itself on asking the tough questions and demanding answers that serve the continually shifting needs of volatile investors. Are they unable to find any credible local economic analysts to handle the desk, or are we going to be witness to a collection of “chums” presenting ill thought out analysis which they are too over polite to interrogate. The entire production reeks of a level of parochialism that makes Sky look positively global.
How is that we can have such excellent economic analysis across a battery of radio stations and yet whether it is Summit on Sky, Summit on Summit or now this new CNBC Africa all we get is bad visuals and stuttering servile continuity in ongoing performances that have the ‘oiky’ staged credibility of a rural agricultural fair.
No comments:
Post a Comment