LA Biz Observed: *CNBC's money honeys

*CNBC's money honeys

Mark Lacter • Bio • Email

Never mind about the stock market being up more than 200 points - Wall Street's really big story today concerns the supposed displeasure among CNBC's female talent who don't answer to the names Maria "Money Honey" Bartiromo or Erin "Maria 2.0" Burnett. (If you haven't been following this nonsense, Burnett is the younger dish who has the biz and media guys drooling (not only beautiful, but smart, funny, blah, blah, blah...) Now according to the NY Post's Page Six (my usual source for Money Honey news), the financial network's lesser-known reporters and anchors are complaining about all the attention that Maria and Erin have been getting (regular gigs on the "Today" show, limos, gushing quotes from network brass, etc). So what are those other gals - chopped liver? "The catfight that started with Maria being jealous of Erin's rise has spread down the line. Now all of the other female reporters are getting p - - - ed off," the Post quotes its "insider" as saying. The folks at DealBreaker, who have been on CNBC's Diva Watch for quite some time, are skeptical on several fronts. Yet, conspiracy theorists have emerged (well, we are only two days from a holiday weekend).

The first conspiracy theory reading begins like they all do: following the money. We’re sure that executive at the soon-to-arrive Fox Business Channel—which is owned by News Corp, which just happens to own the New York Post—aren’t too broken up about trouble at their rival. Conspiracy minded readers have already started spinning a theory that the story was planted by Fox Business executives hoping to splinter CNBC. That’s a bit implausible, however, since we can’t imagine that anyone could succeed in poaching one of the network’s anchors by dreaming up a fight. A counter-conspiracy theory has also been submitted by readers. This one holds that the entire “cat fight” story line was created by the women of CNBC themselves, hoping to scare better deals out of the network by scaring them into worrying that Fox might poach their top talent. Again, we’re skeptical about this one because, well, it’s way too complex. Too many moving parts. The sisterhood can't be that strong, can it?

*The numbers are in: This probably has a lot more to do with the rollercoaster stock market than the Money Honeys, but CNBC posted its best August numbers in five years. (Crain's NY Business)

12:28 PM Wednesday, August 29 2007 • Link
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