Same Rukeyser, Same Well-Honed Mix--It’s Just a New Network
Fans of the long-running “Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser” may be seeing double these days.
The new “Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street” on CNBC is nearly a clone of his old PBS show, down to the guest list, shiny leather furniture and wax fruit. The new “Wall Street Week” (without Rukeyser) on PBS, a Friday-night place holder until the co-branded “Wall Street Week With Fortune” starts June 28, also is basically the same show as its predecessor, but with humorless guest hosts.
Channel surfers during the 8:30 time slot could be confused by all this, if somehow they missed reports of the spat this spring between Rukeyser and PBS. After 32 years on the air, Rukeyser was unceremoniously dumped by Maryland Public Television in a PR blunder that some commentators, including the normally jovial Rukeyser himself, saw as borderline elder abuse. The producers and PBS already were revamping the show in an effort to reach a younger audience, and Rukeyser was unhappy with the reduced role planned for him.
Rukeyser’s seamless transition to cable comes as no surprise. His original show is older than the Nasdaq--not to mention many of today’s mutual fund managers.
Some commentators, perhaps jealous of his $20-million-a-year empire of investment newsletters, speeches, conferences and cruises, call Rukeyser a pompous and shallow self-promoter, but he has a well-honed and winning formula. Easy to watch, easy to understand.
The format starts with Rukey- ser’s pithy opening commentary, followed by a cordial round-table discussion of the economy and the stock market with the week’s panelists and guest.
Rukeyser opened a recent show in typically droll style, telling the story of a salesman who tries to sell a pricey feeding system to a farmer by noting that it gets pigs ready for market much faster. The sly farmer replies, “What’s time to a hog?” Which is Rukeyser’s way of saying the market just needs time to recover along with the U.S. economy, so chill out.
For PBS, the true test comes later this month when the wraps come off the new show, to be co-hosted by Geoffrey Colvin, editorial director of AOL Time Warner Inc.’s Fortune magazine, and financial broadcaster Karen Gibbs. Interim guest hosts have filled in smoothly, using a no-nonsense approach. They included Marshall Loeb, senior correspondent for the Web site CBSMarketwatch.com, who last week interviewed investment manager Tim Ghriskey.
Investors can get a double dose of advice and analysis even without channel flipping or using the VCR, at least if they have cable. CNBC airs “Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street” at 5:30 p.m. on Fridays as well as head-to-head against his old show, and some PBS stations rebroadcast the CNBC version on weekends through a special arrangement (KCET in Los Angeles is not among them, however).
Tonight, both programs could feature lively exchanges. Rukeyser will chat with Merrill Lynch & Co. Chairman David Komansky about the crisis in confidence plaguing Wall Street, where brokerage analysts are under fire because of conflicts of interest. The guest host on PBS, veteran broadcaster Ray Brady, talks with energy analyst Charles Maxwell about an industry beset by accounting scandals, ongoing investigations and even personal tragedies such as the apparent suicide of an executive that rocked the shares of El Paso Corp. this week.
It will be interesting to see what PBS and Fortune come up with, but for now, the Rukeyser formula times two is not half bad. These days it’s reassuring to know that anything on Wall Street still works.