It was Gram’s 79th birthday last year, October 11th, a Friday fall afternoon. 3:59 pm Eastern Time. I am having a late lunch. I can hear the TV in the dining room of which Gram is watching. I hear context of self-reflection. I also hear something about contracts and leaving. I literally run to the living room and saw the abnormal closing of Shepard Smith Reports on the Fox News Channel; using my ears, I knew he was gone. Both of us looked puzzled Because our box has a DVR, I rewound back 2 minutes before to see it again. This time, we see the leadup to to Neil Cauvto who went like “wola” and was felt he was thrown under the bus. In fact when you see the last jib cam shot, you see a group of people on an Avaya phone almost like coordinating his shadowed exit.
Ironically Emily Rooney’s show on WGBH was on tape that evening because it was the upcoming Columbus Day Weekend. Did the panel follow up and made a segment the following Friday? Nope! Not to mention in January she made a remark confused of where he was on the channel. I said he left on the week y’all off! Brian Steltzer had a tingle in his eye when the news broke at CNN.
Nevertheless Shep’s disappearance (whether you like him or not, whether or not you like his politics or whether or not you approve of his sexuality) was a huge void missing in cable, of which I am pointing to YOU COVID19 and POTUS & Friends! The news of Shep moving to CNBC was announced in mid to late summer and promos are running on CNBC’s air this week. His show begins tonight 7:00 Eastern on CNBC.
My predictions:
- If you wanted balance and stable coverage on COVID19, Shep is the go-to guy. If you were missing better coverage, Shep being off the air didn’t help
- There will most likely be some business and market coverage. That 7:00 ET slot had been reserved for emergent market events; and Shep can do that either on his own or help with his new CNBC team
- Will Shep chase the storms in studio or in the field? That may not be out of the realm of possibilities.
- This may not occur, but CNBC is due for a massive rebrand….way overdue. Because the dark blue colors of graphics and set have gone for too long. In fact in it’s 31 years, nearly half of it has been around dark blue/black; whether it’s graphics or sets and/or both. CNBC’s history has not had many years had vibrant colors. Their current studios is roughly 17 years old, and for at least 15 years, CNBC has had a lot of dark backdrops and lighting in the largest part of the building, the newsroom. You can’t tell me that it’s growing mold and other elements of sick building syndrome, which actually what SBS stands for.