News on News Exclusive

On the first edition of News on News' new podcast series, Media Critique, CNBC Squawk Box Europe presenter, Geoff Cutmore, exclusively talks about the evolution of the show he's anchored since it first went to air in 1997, and the likely Comcast merger with NBC Universal.

In the interview, Cutmore also explains how he was picked up by CNBC, and the chain of events that led to the mergers in Europe between CNBC and Eurpean Business News, and in Asia between CNBC and Asia Business News.

Geoff Cutmore on Joining CNBC in Europe;

"The way that my career started with CNBC, I was picked up by them in Hong Kong initially, that would be back in 1994-5, they came to Hong Kong to start up an asian operation.  They also had a business in London at the time through Financial Times Televsion. 

"FT-TV produced the product, but CNBC in the US effectively took the content and then ultimately as the competing businesses decided that the pie wasn't big enough yet in Asia or Europe to support two business television news entities, EBN merged with CNBC, or took most of the FT-TV people, and in Asia, Asia Business News(ABN) merged with CNBC Asia which I was on at the time, so that's how we all ended up being CNBC in 1997."

Geoff Cutmore on NBC Universal - Comcast merger;

"Well, that's on the cards, it's no secret that Comcast is lined up to take a 51% stake in the NBC Properties, we wait and watch with a great deal of interest.  I think outside of the United States, not a whole lot is known about Comcast's business, so sitting where I am in London, obviously we're all keen to find out what this change in ownership structure is going to mean for the way that we put our programming together. 

"At this stage, it doesn't look like very much at all from all the indications, the Comcast executives are very happy with what they see around the globe produced by CNBC. We're just waiting to see when closure comes, we initially thought the end of November, that now seems to be stretched to the end of December, and possibly some time in the first quarter of 2011, but it's obviously quite a complex deal, and it has got to go through some regulatory hoops in the US to be green lighted."

The interview can be heard in the December edition of the Media Critique Podcast (click here), which also features an exclusive interview with Manus Cranny, Markets Desk Reporter for Bloomberg Television.

A full, uncut edition of the Geoff Cutmore interview can also be downloaded (click here) which includes questions and answers which were cut from the podcast version.