CNBC's aggressive reworking of its programming lineup, which was announced during the recent Television Critics Association press tour, reflects not only the difficulties the network faced in 2001 but also the challenges that lie ahead in 2002.

Traditionally a money machine for NBC, chalking up huge revenue gains during the great bull market of the 1990s, the network is trying to keep viewers from switching to CNN or to MSNBC and Fox News, if and when news about terrorism breaks.

?It's been a difficult year for us and for everyone else,? says the network's CEO Pamela Thomas-Graham.

While CNBC is still the undisputed leader in financial news, its core audience of financial professionals, personal investors and Dow junkies consititutes a narrow target. At a time when interest in business news is overshadowed by interest in war and general news, CNBC will have to learn to live with its brand positioning, according to media buyer Cathy Goodin, SVP-strategic communications, Saatchi & Saatchi.

?If there's a war, you're going to tune to CNN,? says Goodin. On the other hand, ?if a CEO wants to release some information, he or she wants to be on CNBC.? (When Comcast's Brian Roberts and AT&T Broadband's Michael Armstrong announced their recent merger deal, for instance, the first place they appeared together was on CNBC.)

The numbers for full-year 2001 certainly speak to cable audiences' appetite for wartime coverage on the general-news nets. Whereas CNN's total-day household numbers surged by 45% in 2001, MSNBC's by 49% and Fox News's by 117%, CNBC's slipped by 3%, according to Nielsen Media Research; in prime time, the general news networks saw household delivery increase by an average of 59% in 2001, whereas CNBC's gain was 5%.

Another problem for CNBC was the re-entry of CNN's Lou Dobbs into the prime time financial-news orbit, which hurt CNBC's own prime-time news program, Business Center. Without Dobbs, Business Center more than held its own against Moneyline, but for the first two weeks of 2002, Dobbs's show raked in an average of 524,000 viewers nightly, compared with Business Center's 293,000.

And according to CNN, since Dobbs's May 14 return, the show has increased the ratings for its 6 to 7 p.m. slot by 50% and its total viewers by 77%.

Though CNN has struck a blow to CNBC's prime time, it should also be noted that CNBC's ratings for October and November 2001 actually increased; in October alone, the network's full-day household average rose from 254,000 in 2000 to 331,000 in 2001, representing a 30% uptick.

That surge, combined with an 8% rise in subscribers (from 75.2 million to 81.8 million) and the incrementally greater associated license fees, would offset some of the lower cost-per-thousand (CPM) rate that many networks suffered, especially during the last half of 2001, according to analyst Bill Marchetti of Kagan World Media, the databook publisher that, like Cable World, is owned by Media Central. He adds that CNBC did not lose as much revenue in September as its news competition because it returned to showing ads sooner.

Marchetti wouldn't provide a figure for CNBC's ad sales, but said he didn't think the network was hit harder than most networks.

CNBC, for its part, did not provide ad revenue numbers, but officials stress that their financial results for 2001 will be at least on par with those from 2000.

For the 38-year-old Thomas-Graham, who took the CNBC reins last July after heading up CNBC.com, the lineup overhaul, which will take effect Feb. 4, represents the most significant move yet of her tenure.

Complicating matters was the fact that her predecessors, like Bill Bolster, who now runs CNBC International, and current Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, were both known as programming gurus, whereas her professional experience was almost entirely outside of television. Before Thomas-Graham arrived at CNBC, the Harvard Law and Harvard Business School graduate was a partner at McKinsey & Co., the management consulting firm, where her clients consisted of media and entertainment companies, including NBC.

Her experience as a consultant, however, gave her plenty of exposure to, as she puts it, ?a lot of the people who watch and who appear and who advertise on CNBC. And I really represent our core audience.?

Viewers told Thomas-Graham that CNBC's ?personalities were really compelling and that we should position our best-known personalities at the high points of our day.?

For CNBC, the high points of any day include the opening and closing bells of the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. As a result, Squawk Box, the morning quasi-zoo during which barbs and sarcastic jabs fly as freely as stock picks, has been moved an hour later, running from 8 to 11 a.m. Says Graham, ?In the old configuration, the show would be over a half hour after the opening bell, [which] we thought was a really abrupt way to end it.?

Similarly, Maria Bartiromo, CNBC's most recognizable face from her reporting on the floor of the NYSE, will host a new show starting at 3 p.m. called Closing Bell and will be joined at market close an hour later by Tyler Mathiesen.

Also, the network is starting its market day an hour later, and is replacing one of the anchors of Today's Business ? Bob Sellers ? with Carl Quintanilla, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and current reporter for CNBC who was recently named to People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful list.

No matter how pretty the network gets, however, Saatchi & Saatchi's Goodin says that CNBC's brand equity is secure. ?Sure, everyone is evolving, including CNBC, but their brand still stands for good financial reporting.?

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