News Broadcasting
CNBC elevates CEO to chairman, names new president
MUMBAI: In two related executive announcements, CNBC has promted Pamela Thomas-Graham as the chairman of business news channel CNBC and Mark Hoffman has been named as the new president.
The announcements were made yesterday in New York by General Electric (NBC’s parent company) vice chairman and NBC Universal chairman and CEO Bob Wright along with NBC Universal Television Group president Jeff Zucker.
Thomas-Graham was earlier CNBC president and CEO and her appointment is effective immediately. In her new position, Thomas-Graham will be reporting to Wright and will be responsible for strategic planning for CNBC and for identifying major growth opportunities for the brand, including potential brand extensions. The appointment was made in recognition of the global scale, profitability and prominence of CNBC as the world leader in business news and its continued growth potential.
Hoffman, who was earlier NBC Universal-owned WVIT president and general manager, will hold the position of CNBC president and will report to both Zucker and Thomas-Graham.
“Pamela has driven profitable growth for CNBC in a very challenging economic environment. I have been impressed by her intellect and leadership capabilities and look forward to working with her on a number of important new strategic opportunities. During her tenure, CNBC built impressively upon its global prominence as the most important and profitable worldwide business news television brand. I welcome her in her new role as chairman,” Wright said.
“We have achieved a number of successes during my tenure as president,” said Thomas-Graham.”I look forward to being able to now focus on CNBC’s strategic planning challenges to generate continued growth for the company.”
Thomas-Graham was appointed CNBC president and CEO in July 2001. Previously, she was CNBC.com’s president and CEO. She joined NBC in 1999 from McKinsey & Company, where she was a partner.
As CNBC president, Hoffman will undertake day-to-day responsibility for the network’s operations, programming and technology. The appointment represents a homecoming for Hoffman, who served at CNBC as executive producer (1997-98), vice president/ managing editor (1999-2000) and vice president/ managing editor, business development (2001). In addition, Hoffman served as interim president of London-based CNBC Europe from September 2000 through January 2001.
“I am thrilled to be rejoining CNBC and teaming up with some of the brightest and most creative television professionals in the industry. I couldn’t be more optimistic about the future of CNBC,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman began his career in 1981 as a news associate at KNX Radio in Los Angeles. He moved to television a year later as a producer at KMGH-TV, the CBS affiliate in Denver. He ascended the ranks as a producer at WNEV-TV in Boston; executive producer and then managing editor at WLS-TV in Chicago; assistant news director at WABC-TV in New York; and news director at WAGA-TV in Atlanta and WBBM-TV in Chicago. In March 1993 Hoffman joined the NBC family as vice president, news at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. He later served as vice president/general manager of KDNL-TV in St. Louis and executive producer/development at Warner Brothers/Telepictures before joining CNBC as executive producer in July 1997.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
