| Miller, an Emmy award winner, will also serve as executive
producer of the prime-time talk show, which will be taped in Burbank
and produced by NBC Studios.
Miller began his career 18 years ago at NBC as a regular on Saturday
Night Live. In 1994, he launched a weekly series on Time Warner
Inc.'s HBO cable channel called Dennis Miller Live. Later
he was a Monday Night Football commentator for two seasons
on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network.
"We are thrilled that he has chosen CNBC as his new prime-time
home," said CNBC President Pamela Thomas-Graham.
Hiring Miller is an aggressive programming move by CNBC, whose
nighttime audience is generally smaller than those of its cable
competitors.
Miller will be the first broadly known personality to appear on
the network's prime-time lineup since Geraldo Rivera left CNBC for
Fox News Channel in 2001. CNBC has been focusing mostly on business-oriented
talk programs at night, like Kudlow & Cramer and Capital
Report. Miller's new program will not necessarily focus on business
but on whatever is the most compelling topic of the day, CNBC executives
said.
In an unusual arrangement for cable news, it will be produced by
CNBC's entertainment corporate sibling, NBC Studios, which also
makes shows like Will & Grace. This is not CNBC's first
nighttime programming experiment. It has also announced that a quarterly
show that features the former magazine editor Tina Brown interviewing
leaders of finance, media and politics, will become a weekly.
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