CNBC2's loss is C-SPAN3's gain; Bad business news leaves financial network on the sidelines

The recent economic downturn hasn't been kind to TV financial shows, which are losing viewers nearly as fast as technology stocks are losing market value. Now comes word that CNBC, the once red-hot business channel, has postponed the launch of its highly touted spinoff, CNBC2, indefinitely. In response, Time Warner Cable has reclaimed the channel it set aside for CNBC2 on its digital cable systems and given it instead to C-SPAN3, a similar-sounding but very different offering from the good-government folks at C-SPAN. Goodbye, Wall Street excitement. Hello, commerce subcommittee hearings. When CNBC2 was announced 18 months ago, at the height of the bull market, it seemed like the real deal. According to industry reports, CNBC2 was to operate around the clock and have a more international flavor with help from CNBC's sister channels in Asia and Europe. Time Warner Cable, the nation's No. 2 cable operator, bought the pitch and ordered CNBC2 for its 1.7 million customers with digital cable. Time Warner Cable of Kansas City, which has 90,000 digital customers, planned to put CNBC2 on Channel 225. If you tuned into Channel 225 any time in the last two months, you saw a display that read, "CNBC2 to launch in Jan. '01." But January came and went, and still no CNBC2. On Wednesday a CNBC spokesman would say only that the new channel was being "reformatted," that its launch date was "yet to be announced," and that there was no connection between the delay and wilting Nielsen ratings for many business-oriented shows - including CNBC's "Power Lunch" (down 20 percent from last year) and "Market Wrap" (down 8 percent). CNN's "Moneyline" is also down in the Nielsens by 13 percent compared with a year ago, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. Time Warner Kansas City began looking for alternatives to CNBC2 and found C-SPAN3, which had fortuitously launched in late January. C-SPAN3 is the solution to a longstanding headache at C-SPAN: too much content, too little time. As the only cable network dedicated to covering public affairs in Washington, C-SPAN casts a wide net. On any given day half a dozen of its camera crews are in the field, capturing policy events, Capitol Hill meetings and press conferences. In an ideal world that material would air immediately. But C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 give priority to the two chambers of Congress and always show their proceedings live. As a result, an important luncheon address or hearing may wait hours until it is telecast. And it's not just Beltway wonks who complain when this happens. A C-SPAN spokesman recalled that "a lot of people were upset because we didn't cover part of the impeachment trial of Clinton when the House and Senate were in session." C-SPAN3's schedule of political programming is telecast between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. weekdays. At night and on weekends, the channel re-airs history-themed programming seen previously on C-SPAN. C-SPAN runs its networks on a parsimonious budget; the three channels produce thousands of hours of programming a year for less than the cost of three "ER" episodes. And Bruce Collins, corporate vice president and general counsel of C-SPAN, said the additional cost of starting C-SPAN3 was nominal, so it's being offered to cable operators for free. At that price, it became a no-brainer for Time Warner Cable. (Comcast Cable, which serves parts of the Kansas City area, has no immediate plans to add C-SPAN3, according to a spokesman.) So a channel that was supposed to showcase CNBC's Next Big Thing is now the home of C-SPAN's sure thing. As Collins joked, "We've finally drawn the dot-commers into the dot-org world." You can reach Aaron Barnhart through the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com >>>