CNBC Asia

CNBC Asia is a business news television channel owned by NBCUniversal. It is the Asian service of CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel). Its programmes originate from Singapore. It was officially opening ceremony at grand opening or formally opening breakfast in Singapore on 20 June 1995 at 6:00am SST based in Singapore and it operated from CNBC Asia's head office and headquarters in Singapore. Currently, it provides business and market information to 385 million people globally. History 1995–1997: pre-ABN merger CNBC Asia was officially opened by President of Singapore Ong Teng Cheong on 20 June 1995 at 6:00am SST along with sister channel NBC Asia. It was originally based in Singapore under Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) after Asia Business News along with a Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur bureau and reporters based across the region. Anchors such as Rico Hizon, Bernard Lo, Lorraine Hahn, Sumire Sugimoto, Dalton Tanonaka and Bill Hartley were part of the original CNBC Asia team which includes around 170 Singapore based staff. It adopted similar programmes from its US counterpart, such as The Money Wheel and Business Tonight, but also had a few of its own programmes as well. In addition, from launch the channel broadcast programmes from CNBC Europe during the afternoon and CNBC US overnight. Post-ABN merger In December 1997, Dow Jones & Company and NBC announced the merger of their international business news channels. This resulted in a merger of CNBC Asia with Dow Jones' Asia Business News (ABN) and likewise of CNBC Europe with European Business News. The officially merged channel launched on 31 January 1998 at 11:59pm SST and was officially initially named CNBC Asia Business News but it was officially referred to as CNBC Asia on 30 June 1998 at 11:59pm SST. As a result of the merger, there were massive employee lay-offs and programme cancellations at CNBC's Asia original headquarters in Singapore but Rico Hizon, Geoff Cutmore and Bernard Lo joined the newly merged channel whose operations have been based in Singapore ever since. Programmes and personalities came mostly from ABN and were for the most part retained in their original form (i.e., title and graphics scheme). CNBC Asia also mainly used ABN's own graphics scheme rather than adopt those in use by CNBC US and CNBC Europe. In addition, there was no regional ticker for most audiences until 26 October 1998 and simulcasts of US and European programmes were very limited.