Erin Burnett is basically the only competition to Maria Bartiromo for the title of Hottest Chick on Finance TV — if you don't count the Fox Business Network, where, not to insult our friends over there, but their understanding the difference between bull and bear was not the top hiring criteria.

Burnett receives an evergreen write up from Times TV scribe Brian Stelter, who points out that Burnett kinda just came out of nowhere and became an overnight success story. And that it was very calculated from inside CNBC. (This is a very nicely packaged tale. Its backstory might need more re-telling.)

But: Co-anchoring a program within weeks of her arrival? Currently anchoring three hours of live programming a day? How ever did such a woman of so few years (she's 32) get to do all that?

CONTINUED »

CNBC has been having a one Howard Glaser on the air to talk about the mortgage meltdown, and how the federal government is stepping in to bank roll Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae so the entire nation's economy doesn't nose dive any farther. CNBC introduced him as a "mortgage industry consultant." CNBC did not introduce him as a paid consultant to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which he is. That type of thing is what some in this biz refer to as a "conflict of interest." (The network says it wasn't aware of the relationship. Glaser says his fee from the big banks doesn't influence his on-air analysis. Right.)

Add to MSNBC's focus today on Hillary Clinton's new hairdo — "they would never talk about a guy's haircut" we imagine someone screaming — and NBC's cable networks are ratcheting up a whole slew of sticking points for the conservative blogs to get their jazz hands on.

"CNBC talk show guy and famed ad man Donny Deutsch managed to get himself surrounded by women less than half his age at the Waverly Inn last night, all in short skirts and high heels," reports Roger Friedman. "It’s good to be king!"

Now, what, exactly, is Friedman's definition of King?

Because last time we checked, nobody was watching Donny's show.

CONTINUED »

Even though the brothers of dead hedge fund manager and CNBC talking head Seth Tobias have settled with widow Filomena Tobias and sorted out the future of Tobias' $25 million estate, they refuse to retract allegations that she killed their loved one back in September when he was found drugged up in his pool. "There will be no retraction of the allegations," says their attorney. "I would not say that the Tobiases don't believe that she killed him." And that statement comes after the settlement was reached, which means only one thing: Filomena had a crappy ass attorney. Most settlement agreements like this one include clauses about non-disclosure and non-disparagement, which means neither party can publicly reveal the terms of the settlement nor take the other's good name to the pavement. [Palm Beach Post via NYM]

MSNBC may totally have it in the bag for Barack Obama, but over on the network's fiscally concerned sister network CNBC, Maria Bartiromo has a less rosy outlook on what the Democratic presidential hopeful is about to bestow on the country: "He's going to take the capital gains tax at 15 percent right now all the way up to 25 to 28 percent. Sell anything, like a home or stocks, and make a profit . . . [almost] 30 percent of the profit will go to the government instead of 15." And also, for you "not rich" people earning over $200,000, prepare for an income tax hike of 35 percent to 39 percent. "We're talking about people who make over $200,000. That's not rich. So it's actually going to impact more people than you may think." [P6]

Terry Murphy will replace Wil Surratt as the executive producer of The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, effective today, says TVN. Oh, and there's also this bit of news: The Big Idea clocked just 114,000 viewers in May, "scratching" on its Nielsen ratings, since it fellow below the threshold of 122,000 viewers needed to even register.

IS 50 SEXY? PBS's Nightly Business Report host Susie Gharib rakes in 700,000 viewers a night to CNBC's Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo grabs 340,000. So why isn't Gharib lavished with the kind of attention Bartiromo receives? Well, for starters, she's 57. [Marketwatch]

"The Big Idea is a stake in the ground against Fox in primetime," declared CNBC executive Jonathan Wald in October.

"They might want to find another stake. Well-tanned ad guru Donny Deutsch's show is off 15 percent in the ratings year-to-date versus the same period in 2007, according to Nielsen. That's both among total viewers and within the prime 25-54 age group.

"Worse, The Big Idea frequently 'scratches,' or draws an audience too small to mention. That's been the case half of the time so far in May." [Portfolio]

Patrick Byrne, chief of "all about the O" Overstock.com, hit up the Fox Business Network to 1) defend against never having an entirely profitable year; and 2) to air out his conspiracy theory that CNBC has it out for him.

Byrne: "I happen to know for a fact there is a fax machine in the CNBC offices where every morning hedge funds send in the instructions. The journalists sit around and take their instructions."

Responded FBN anchor Liz Claman and former CNBC-er: "I used to work at CNBC and I never saw the fax machine."

Byrne: "I have a good source on that."

Uh huh. Clip below (RedLasso, maybe buggy).

CONTINUED »

Thanks to a silly SEC requirement, TheStreet.com made Jim Cramer's salary a matter of public record. The stock picker of questionable talent saw his pay jump 30 percent, earning a base of $1.3 million this year (up from $1m) and, by 2010, some $1.87 million. Since we're crunching numbers, consider what would've happened should have followed Cramer's advice on CNBC about keeping your investment in crumble-prone Bear Sterns: If you owned 10,000 shares of the company when it was worth $60 a share, your $600,000 investment would've been worth just $100,000 after JPMorgan paid the $10 a share it bought the company for. That's a depreciation of 83 percent, or an overall value loss of 600 percent. And that's why some of us make the big bucks.

Though an irate Fortune chief Andy Serwer called us last week to demand we retract our claim that his magazine was about to deliver a blowjobby piece on CNBC, the current issue's Jessi Hempel article on the network does little to counter our report. Fortune is in love with CNBC!

To be perfectly fair, many of Fortune's bullet points are on target: The launch of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Business Network hasn't been much of an attack at all; ratings are, generally, up; income streams are fattening.

But the fawning over CNBC charge Mark Hoffman, that we imagined Hempel would deliver, is clearly there: "Mark Hoffman has added edge and emotion to a network that was heavily criticized in the run-up to the tech bust for its rah-rah business take on the news." Adds Jim Cramer: "Mark is remarkable because he says, 'Tell me what you need.' And we get it." Just get on his leg and start humping already.

Then again, Hoffman has overseen profits skyrocket 36 percent since taking over in 2005, so maybe he is entirely crush-worthy. Or they got some awesome new informericals to play on Saturdays. Fortune even gives Fox Business props: "On Martin Luther King Day the network aired live as the international markets melted down; CNBC stuck to its policy of airing taped programming when the U.S. markets close. And on Good Friday, FBN had live coverage when Standard & Poor's released a ratings cut of Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Lehman (LEH, Fortune 500). Again, CNBC wasn't live."

Ugh! Distinguishing between bias and fact-based favoritism is HARD.

Jim Cramer's faulty Bear Stearns advice earned him comparisons to Neville Chamberlain, courtesy of FBN. But was his misstep a one-time affair, or does CNBC's Mad Money host have a record of doling out bad recommendations?

CONTINUED »

How to get Fortune magazine to pen a puff piece on you? Complain that they did the same for the competition.

The Time Inc. business title is said to be working on a softball story on CNBC, hitting in the April 14 issue. This comes after Fortune published, in October, a blowjobby piece on the just-launching Fox Business Network, penned by then-staffer Tim Arango.

When that article hit, Kevin Goldman (then the VP of CNBC publicity and a former Wall Street Journal reporter) fired off an angry three-page letter to Fortune's editors, we're told, complaining about the rival network receiving such gratuitous coverage just out of the gate and demanding "better treatment" for CNBC.

Now, it could be argued, Fortune is offering a make good: The GE finance network is set to receive its own lauding coverage in the magazine.

We're told Jessi Hempel is penning the piece and, according to cable industry sources she spoke with, promised the article will be "extremely positive." After all, relays a source, Hempel says she was "told to write a positive piece about CNBC" and has declared she's a fan of CNBC chief Mark Hoffman.

When asked about the situation, Fortune chief Andy Serwer responded in a statement: "This article is an in-depth snapshot of CNBC, the only one that has been written in the last 5 years, with the kind of reporting, fact-checking and honesty that readers have come to expect from Fortune."

This Fox Business Network ad appears in today's New York Times, which touts the new-ish cable network's accomplishments — a list that basically includes "not airing Jim Cramer's crazy." (Click image for larger version) [via TVN]

Comedian and red eye getter-outter Ben Stein made headlines this month thanks to his narration of the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film about the censorship of scientists who believe Darwin's evolution theory might be bunk, and that intelligent design is a more feasible explanation for how humans, fish, and spiders came to be. Getting attention was helped along by him attending movie screenings (always head privately and not open to the press) and lobbying politicians to allow alternative theories to be taught in public school.

So now you're caught up on his brand of rational thought.

Now Stein, who has no money for you to win, is on the trail of the Fox Business Network's answer to Maria Bartiromo. Roger Ailes has his own fleet of money honeys and, although they're seen more in articles about FBN than on the channel's actual airwaves, Stein is, in the pages of Best Life, gaga for 'em. But where, Stein wonders, did all these lovely ladies come from?

CONTINUED »

Jim Cramer might have given questionable financial advice to his Mad Money viewers when it came to their investments in Bear Stearns. Some might say his suggestion – to keep your cash money in the bank, which went from $60 per share to $2 in a week – was not a smart move.

CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo has scored a $500,000 book deal from Crown, a Random House imprint. Not many details about what the book will be about, but "success" is the general theme. As in, "successfully avoiding getting canned for private trysts." [NYO]

CNBC brass hasn't been too worried about the competition Rupert Murdoch launched on the airwaves; Fox Business Network's viewers are being measured in the single thousands. But the small screen isn't the last frontier — that would be the Internet, where FBN is trouncing its rival. Forgive us for placing much weight in web metrics, but comScore claims FoxBusiness.com racked up 1.01 million unique visitors in January, to CNBC.com's 998,000.

Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider wants you to "consider, for a moment, how pathetic and worrisome this is for NBC U. CNBC has been around since the early 90s; FBN launched in August. FBN likely is getting help from News Corp.'s big sites, including Marketwatch, WSJ.com and maybe even MySpace. But CNBC has plenty of help, too, via a corporate structure that includes MSNBC.com (50-50 joint venture partner with Microsoft), which gives NBC News a massive presence on the Web." Which is all true, but News Corp. is also buying up traffic through ad partners like Google, paying a steep price per visitor. Is organic traffic more valuable than click-thru traffic? It could be argued.

Then again, neither site is a category leader in online business news: Finance units from Yahoo and AOL, and CNNMoney.com, all trounce the networks' sites.

Maria Bartiromo is more than just a pretty face who takes ethically questionable rides on corporate jets. In fact, some argue that her role at CNBC has changed the way analyst information is disseminated, which might actually be making for smarter individual investors. Also, her hot lips make for easier listening to this crap.

CONTINUED »

Billy Ash, the self-professed expert and know-it-all in the maybe-murder/maybe-suicide of CNBC contributor Seth Tobias, is much the subject of New York magazine's cover story this week. He's also been keeping in touch with Jossip, going so far as to submit a copy of his video deposition, in which he chokes up at the thought of Tobias' wife, Phyllis, killing his former boss. (Tobias claims to be his former assistant.)

For obvious reasons – including his six month stint in prison, in 1997, for running a prostitution ring and various other illicit activities – Ash's credibility has been questioned. Namely, by New York's Stephen Rodrick.

"I asked Ash if he could provide a snapshot or any other evidence to back up his claim that he and Seth Tobias had ever met," writes Rodrick. "I asked him if I could see the photos of Tobias taken the day he died. He tugged at his cap and shifted his weight. 'You really need to call Debra and make a proposal.' He wanted money before speaking to me further. 'I’m only telling you one percent of it. Make a good proposal, and I’ll tell you more.'"

Well, Ash didn't ask us for any money, but he did provide a photo of Tobias supposedly taken the day he died. It's yours, after the jump.

CONTINUED »