TV & VIDEO - April 18, 1989

CNBC, NBC’s 24-hour consumer and business-news cable service, dawned Monday with only minor opening-day problems--a slight audio glitch in a live report from London shortly after the cable service began operations at 6 a.m. EDT, a 10-minute stoppage in a stock-market ticker and a Wall Street report in which correspondent Arthur Alpert forgot but then remembered to put on his lapel microphone. NBC President Robert C. Wright called the venture, which cost an estimated $65 million to launch, “the most significant programming effort NBC has ever undertaken outside of the network. . . .” Ironically, NBC’s new financial news service can’t be seen on Wall Street because CNBC has no Manhattan cable outlet yet.