Expansion (1993–2013)
Roger Ailes was hired as the president of CNBC in August 1993, tasked by NBC CEO Bob Wright with turning around the struggling network. Ailes resigned in January 1996 due to disagreements with management, including the decision by NBC management to form a joint venture with Microsoft that included the rebrand of "America's Talking" as MSNBC. Under the leadership of Ailes, annual revenue at CNBC rose from $43 million to $110 million.
In June 1995, CNBC launched the Hong Kong–based CNBC Asia, and CNBC Europe, headquartered in London, in March 1996.
In December 1997, CNBC formed a strategic alliance with Dow Jones, including content sharing with Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, and Barron's and the rebranding of the channel as "a service of NBC and Dow Jones." As part of the agreement, Dow Jones merged their competing business news channels—London-based European Business News and Singapore-based Asia Business News—into CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia, respectively, with CNBC shutting down its Hong Kong–based operation and relocating the new CNBC Asia to ABN's Singapore studios.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, CNBC's ratings increased sharply along with the stock market, often beating those of CNN during market hours. The highest daytime viewership of the network in 2000 was 343,000.
However, following the burst of the dot-com bubble, CNBC experienced a decline in its viewing figures. In 2002, CNBC's ratings fell 44% and were down another 5% in 2003. The network's ratings steadily fell until bottoming in Q1 2005, with an average viewership of 134,000 during the day.
From 2001 to 2006, the CNBC website was operated by MSN.
In August 2003, CNBC signed a deal to provide weather content from AccuWeather.
In October 2003, CNBC moved its world headquarters from Fort Lee (which became the new home of Telemundo flagship station WNJU) to a new digital video production studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
NBC Universal reacquired full control of 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 until it expired in 2012.
CNBC reported annual revenues of $510 million in 2006. In September 2006, CNBC launched the FTSE CNBC Global 300 stock market index in conjunction with FTSE Group. The index includes the fifteen largest companies from each of the sectors of the Industry Classification Benchmark as well as the thirty largest companies from emerging markets. Profits at CNBC exceeded $333 million in 2007, making CNBC the second most profitable of NBC Universal's thirteen cable channels in the United States, behind only the USA Network. Ratings hit an all-time high in 2007.
CNBC Africa was launched on June 1, 2007. On October 22, 2007, CNBC introduced the "CNBC Investor Network," a network of webcams stationed in the operating departments of various independent financial institutions across the United States, allowing traders to be interviewed instantaneously as news breaks. In December 2007, CNBC formed a content partnership with Yahoo! Finance.
In January 2008, CNBC formed a content partnership with The New York Times, which was seen as an attempt by both parties to take on increased competition from News Corporation. In May 2008, CNBC formed a content partnership with AOL.
Average daytime viewership (6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) reached a seven-year high of 310,000 viewers in the first quarter of 2008. Ratings plummeted in 2009 as the network aired bad economic news resulting from the Great Recession. In January 2010, the launch of the Korean language channel SBS-CNBC marked the fifteenth CNBC-branded channel worldwide. In July 2010, BT signed a five-year contract with CNBC Europe to distribute content from its London headquarters to sister sites in Europe and the US.
In 2011, CNBC won an award at the International Broadcasting Convention for its CNBC 4D: Interactive motion tracking that allows CNBC presenters to interact with 3D graphics, using technology from Unreel, Brainstorm, and Motion Analysis. In June 2012, CNBC expanded its partnership with Yahoo! Finance to reach more online viewers. That month, CNBC.com had 6.5 million unique visitors in the United States, while Yahoo! Finance had 37.5 million.
