There’s no business like shows on business

SINGAPORE – "It’s a very exciting business we have," says CNBC Asia Pacific chief executive officer Scott Goodfellow. His excitement is readily apparent as he talks at length about the company he helms and the job he holds.

CNBC is the business and financial news organization of Dow Jones & Co. and NBC. A respected provider of vital world business and financial information, Dow Jones publishes The Wall Street Journal and its international and online editions. NBC is the broadcasting unit of General Electric Co.

Fascinating

"I think journalism is fascinating because of the whole information flow," Goodfellow says. "You get a strong sense of community. That’s very valuable and I’ve always enjoyed it. I’m interested in what people find attractive and interesting. Television has an immediacy that’s unbeatable.

"There’s an emotional level to TV – we go to TV for the drama, for the feedback and the relation we get with other people. So in our programming, we give stock information, we have a ticker and data. More important, we have people whom viewers like and can relate to.

"There is an additionl group of viewers who are attracted by the personalities, by the presentation, by the other things they learn on TV. Personalities are more than just personalities. They have to have a solid background, a fundamental base of knowledge of financial and business news.

"For example, the reason Squawk Box (hosted by Bernie Lo) does well in the morning is not because people wake up and have to know what happened overnight. It does well because people are having a good time. It’s enjoyable, it’s informative. Our main way to reach more people would be to make business news more accessible."

Viewers

CNBC, Goodfellow emphasizes, airs all its shows in real time, as opposed to airing delayed programs. "It’s very important for us to do that," he points out. "People want to know what’s happening to markets at a given moment."

And because its services are distinctive, CNBC inevitably attracts a special breed of viewers. "We reach people who are highly mobile and upscale, who have financial resources they want to keep track of," says Goodfellow.

"Majority of our viewers tend to be upper demographic – they have higher disposable income and higher educations. They run businesses and want to know what their competitors are doing. Reaching those people has made us a very valuable service to advertisers."

CNBC Asia Pacific’s channels – CNBC Asia, CNBC Australia, CNBC India, Nikkei-CNBC (Japan), CNBC Singapore and CNBC Hong Kong – are available in over 28 million homes across the Asia Pacific. The channels are distributed via satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcast networks.

Philippine market

In the Philippines, CNBC Asia has been airing over Zoe Broadcasting’s Channel 11 since June of this year. This arrangement has been made possible by ENTV led by its CEO Greg Garcia, an advertising veteran and a past president of the Philippine Association of National Advertisers.

"We have an ongoing relationship – a valuable one – with ENTV that stretches well until next year," shares Goodfellow. "We have had discusions about developing specific CNBC kinds of programs that are more targetted for the Philippines. I expect something to come out of that.

"In our expansion in terrestrial TV, the Philippines is a delightful thing from our standpoint. Throughout Asia, we are hugely distributed throughout nearly every cable system. But in all these places, we are pay TV-serviced. With our special position in the Philippines, we can reach ordinary people, not just people already adept at investment. And in Manila, we can reach more of them than in any other city in the region."

As Goodfellow sees it, airing in the Philippines is a key step for implementing CNBC’s overall vision of being "the top provider of business news programming in every country that we serve. We’re well on the way to doing that, even today."

Vision

"Every single year that we’ve been in Asia," he continues, "we have substantially increased advertising revenue over the previous year. And even this year, with a downturn in the world economy, we are doing the same thing. We have no reason to believe that that’s not going to continue broadly and we expect to significantly increase our advertising every single year."

As a CEO, Goodfellow believes that his managerial style is "aggressive, thorough and people-oriented." Underlying all of this, of course, is an enduring passion for news.

Past experiences

Goodfellow took up journalism at the University of North Carolina where he ran the college newspaper. He joined the Navy for a year. "I was a public affairs officer on the John F. Kennedy, the big aircraft carrier," he says. "I was in charge of the TV system. Then I went to Columbia for a one-year journalism program.

"My first job after Columbia was as a TV reporter in Miami. I would run around and cover police stories, creatures on the loose, Asian immigrants. Then I was an anchor for a little while for a Fort Lauderdale studio. I became rapidly interested in production and management. I went to a series of TV stations, working in news departments. My background is all news.

"I was deputy bureau chief for NBC in Washington during the Reagan years. Then, I became involved in cable TV and satellite TV and, ultimately, with Dow Jones. I helped to start Asia Business News in l992. It became clear to me when I became involved in business news that it was growing rapidly. So I became interested in it."

Goodfellow was the director of television of Dow Jones & Co., Inc. Asia from l994 to l997. Asia Business News merged with CNBC-Asia in l998. "When the Nasdaq was going down," he says, "CNBC Asia was growing. Our ratings went up and we continued to grow. I believe that, over time, we’ve become intrinsically a part of people’s lives. We’re in an information service that’s vital to people."

Enjoyment

Goodfellow is grateful for the support given him by his wife Ann (a homemaker, Goodfellow says with a laugh, involved "in every community activity you can imagine") and their daughters, 22-year-old pre-med student Amy and 24-year-old pre-law student Allison. "They support me in every possible way," he says.

In his spare time, the affable CEO is an avid bird watcher who enjoys going to nature parks and nearby islands with nature societies. He also enjoys watching sports. Shopping? "My wife likes to shop, " he jests, "and I try to restrain her ... unsuccessfully!"

"I work almost everyday but I enjoy it thoroughly," Goodfellow says. His work – and that of the whole CNBC – has acquired even more urgency since the Sept. 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

"When the terrible event happened," he says, "ordinary (Philippine) viewers were able to watch the events on Channel 11. It was a terrible, difficult incident but we did a hell of a great job.

"The event was very high impact. We’ve been on high alert, calling on all the available resources we have through NBC and its various networks, the network services plus Dow Jones.

"Clearly, there will be an impact on the economy but the question is: will it be short-term or long-term? That’s our job. From the network’s standpoint, we try to provide investors with the tools to handle their personal finances, to give them what’s looming in the landscape."

Plans

What else can we expect from CNBC Asia in the near future? "We’ll see more personal finance segments," Goodfellow replies, and "lots more showcased segments that relate directly to the incidents that happened (in New York) and that try to make sense of the event in the greater fabric of business in our lives.

"We’d like to do more local programming because we feel that viewers value all that we bring internationally. Almost everybody likes a perspective on what’s happening locally. We’d like to have more on the Philippines and, over time, we can provide you with more.

"From a bigger standpoint, we are probably going to develop a lot more services in certain places. In the last year, we had direct services in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong and we’ll probably do more of that.

"You’ll probably see us do more Asian programming in the afternoon when we presently carry some of our CNBC European service. We’d like to have programs that directly affect our markets here."

What does Goodfellow believe is his most fulfilling contribution to CNBC? "I don’t think it will be a single item. I hope that over the time I’m here, we affect more and more people to learn how financial considerations can improve their lives by acquiring more information on how things work."

With all the nerve-wracking developments these days, does Goodfellow foresee a recession in the offing?

"You can watch CNBC and find out," he answers, grinning.