CNBC sets premiere date for November 17th and announces details of its programming

CNBC announced the official date of its arrival in Brazil. The economic news channel premieres at exactly 8pm on November 17th, a Sunday. An hour before, at 7pm, the company begins activities on its digital channels. The idea is to take advantage of the news generated by the 19th G20 Summit, which begins the following day in Rio de Janeiro.

The information was given by Christiane Pelajo and Fabio Turci, two of the new hires, when opening the launch event of the economic news channel, held this Friday (1st) in a hotel in São Paulo. In addition to businesspeople, several authorities from various spheres of government were on site.

Vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, ministers Fernando Haddad and Juscelino Filho, of Finance and Communications respectively, the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, and the president of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), Luís Roberto Barroso, spoke.

“This launch is very important; I consider it institutionally important that the traditional press, the traditional media, reoccupy the public space in Brazilian life”, said Barroso on stage. “Because it is the traditional press that has the ability to create a set of common facts on which people will form their opinions.”

During the event, details of the channel’s programming were revealed, which promises 15 hours of live broadcasts per day. The schedule will open at 7am with the Agora program. Commanded by Rafael Ihara, it will show the closing of Asian stock exchanges and how the European market is doing. At 9:30 am, Marcelo Torres commands Real Time CNBC, which follows the opening of the Brazilian market and other everyday topics.

At 1pm, Natália Ariede anchors Money Times, in which she will do double duty with Renan de Souza, who will link directly from Abu Dhabi. Next, at 4pm, Fabio Turci leads the CNBC Radar, which will focus on behind-the-scenes power and its connections with the business world.

Christiane Pelajo opens the evening program with Times CNBC, which aims to combine information and analysis, as well as live news from different parts of Brazil and the world. It will be followed by Conexão CNBC, presented by Marcelo Tavares, which will bring a selection of content produced in CNBC newsrooms around the world.

On weekends, the channel also promises a series of programs focused on milder themes, such as leisure, well-being and lifestyle. Among them is the CNBC Passport, for travel, which will be managed by Zeca Camargo, also a columnist for Sheetand Planeta CNBC, which will have Carol Barcellos living experiences that can inspire the channel’s viewers.

Businessman Marcus Buaiz will run the electronic magazine Life Prime. There is even a reality show, Caçador de Ideias, in which American billionaire Tim Draper travels the world to meet startups and gives a million-dollar prize to the one he considers most innovative.

REUNION AND COMPETITION

Much of the CNBC Brasil cast is made up of former Globo journalists. However, unlike what happened at the launch of CNN Brasil, in 2020, when several professionals who were hired were surveyed, the option was for those who had already left the company.

Christiane Pelajo, who was also part of the team that launched GloboNews in 1996, said she never imagined she would be launching two channels in her career. She says that, after leaving Grupo Globo in 2022, she didn’t imagine she would be in front of the cameras again so soon.

“When I resigned from Globo, it was to dedicate myself to entrepreneurship, to my career outside of TV”, he told F5. “I did a lot of corporate communications training, presenting at events, created an innovation and technology podcast. I wasn’t thinking about going back, but the invitation was undeniable.”

The same happened with Fabio Turci, who left the Rio broadcaster in April last year. “I wasn’t making the move to return to TV”, commented the journalist, who says he turned down offers from other media groups. “What definitely brought me back was an alignment with the project. I wanted to come back because of this project.”

Rafael Ihara and Natália Ariede also report similar experiences. “I confess that I had no plans to return to TV, so much so that I told them that when they called me to talk,” said Ihara. “Then we started talking, they explained the project, and my eyes started to shine. We’re left with that sleeping bug of television, of journalism.”

“The idea was to focus on personal projects, projects that I had already been cultivating for a while,” said Ariede. “I continue with these projects, but now with this additional challenge, which has a lot to do with the construction I’ve done since then in my career, bringing together my experience from more than 20 years of television journalism and my entrepreneurial side as well.”

Carol Barcellos was the one who found the invitation most strange, as she had always been a sports journalist and did not expect to be called to a business channel. “Then they explained to me that the idea was for me to do a lifestyle program, that there was travel, there was adventure. So I said, oops!”, he celebrated.

According to Douglas Tavolaro, founder of CNBC’s Brazilian operation, the projection is that the channel will reach 50 million people across all platforms. The channel will be available on Claro, Vivo, Oi and Sky, as well as on regional operators.

He minimized competition with other news channels that already operate in the country and said he believes there is room for CNBC in the market. “I think that naturally the journalism channels will end up losing audience to the business channel because there are people who perhaps don’t just want that day-to-day information, which can sometimes seem like a little more of the same”, he stated.

The executive also spoke about CNN Money, a direct competitor that will be launched next week by CNN Brasil — a brand that he was also responsible for bringing to the country. “I hope that CNN Money is successful, that it has a long life, for many, many years, because this reasoning is very simple: in addition to me having idealized and set up the CNN project in Brazil, the more serious news companies a society has, the more evolved it is”, he assessed.