CNBC is shaking up its morning lineup with the addition of a new two-hour global business report and even more Squawking.
The three-hour Squawk Box is being expanded to four hours (6 a.m.-10 a.m.), and, perhaps taking a page from the revamped Nightline, it will now have a three-anchor format of Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and the returning Carl Quintanilla (he had been with NBC News).
Squawk Box will now be preceded by an as-yet unnamed live, two-hour international business program (4-6 a.m.) anchored from New York, London and Singapore. Wake Up Call, which had aired at 5-7 a.m. is going away.
CNBC had been airing a variety of shows in the 4-5 a.m. slot, including international business news show, CNBC World, live as well as rep-airings of Mad Money, Suze Orman, and others.
Co-host Brad Goode had already gone away a couple months back to do local news in Seattle. Co-host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera will be the U.S. anchor of the new international business show.
There will be other Squawkers on the expanded Box as well.
Host Mark Haines will front a live "Squawk on the Street" segment at 9-10 a.m. from the New York Stock Exchange and Newsweek writer Charles Gasparino joins as an on-air "editor" and reporter on Business Day.
The changes become effective Dec. 19.
Squawk Box began as an hour show in 1995, expanded to two hours in 1997 and to three in 1999.
The 4 to 6 a.m. global show comes as CNBC takes control of its international networks and prepares to dissolve its partnership with Dow Jones at the end of this year, according to CNBC President Mark Hoffman.
The network took sole ownership of CNBC International, which includes CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia Pacific in Dec., buying out Dow Jones, which held 50% of the venture. CNBC took full operational control of its international networks in August.
“Markets will be closing in Asia. Markets will be in full swing in Europe and getting ready to open in the U.S.,” Hoffman said of the global show. “That’s really exploiting some of our great assets around the world.”
By expanding ten-year-old Squawk Box to 6 a.m., CNBC will reach people at home getting ready to leave for work for the day, Hoffman said.
Hoffman denied that Haines’s role with the program was diminished, although Haines, who helped create Squawk ten years ago, will go from anchoring three hours of the show to reporting for an hour from the Stock Exchange.
“It’s not as if we took Mark off his three hours and replaced him with someone who was going to do three hours – that’s not what we’ve done at all,” he said, saying Haines will report from a new set at the Stock Exchange, marking CNBC’s first ever live broadcast from the Exchange during trading hours.
“We’ve got four people who are being assigned to four hours. We had to find a spot to change up the team and the perfectly appropriate time is when we’re rounding the far turn and heading into the home stretch before the market opens and that’s 9 to 10 a.m.
"It’s incredible showcasing. It’ll be a focused hour in a new venue on location, so I guess it’s open for interpretation but the fact is he was not replaced with anyone. His three hours were replaced with three anchors, not one anchor.”
Quintanilla’s move to CNBC brings him full circle – after years as a Wall Street Journal reporter, he began reporting for CNBC before moving to NBC News.
