In our earlier article on CNBC (Watching CNBC – A Bollywood Rasik’s Perspective – July 12), we drew a humorous analogy between the rumored “Maria Bartiromo – Erin Burnett” rivalry on CNBC (discussed in the New York Times Business Section – see our July 12 article) and the rumored “Bipasha Basu – Katrina Kaif” rivalry in Bollywood. Apparently this Bollywood rivalry has reached a point where Bipasha and Katrina do not even say hello to each other.
On July 22 morning, we saw this on CNBC. That morning, General Electric announced a major joint venture with the Mubadala Development Company in Abu Dhabi. Maria Bartiromo got the privilege of interviewing GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt and Mubadala’s CEO, Haldoon Al-Mubarak at 10:30 am, right in the middle of the “Squawk on the Street” show hosted by Erin Burnett and Mark Haines.
Erin and Mark were talking about Mubadala when the screen was split to show Maria Bartiromo. Instantly, Erin was taken right off the screen and the CNBC camera focused on Maria Bartiromo & Mark Haines. Maria smilingly greeted Mark with a “Thank you very much, Mark”. It seemed as if Maria was not willing to acknowledge Erin Burnett’s presence and that too on Erin’s own show. Wow! That was something. Normally, the CNBC person, who breaks in to a show, makes it a point to say hello to both anchors of that show. But, not in this case!
Watch this at http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=800464125&play=1 and judge for yourself.
Of course, Erin Burnett is not unskilled in this art. Some time ago, just before her 2 pm show, Erin made a brief entry on the earlier program, “Power Lunch”. Erin introduced her show and exchanged pleasantries with the regular anchor of “Power Lunch:. Another CNBC on-air reporter, Michelle Caruso Cabrera, was filling in that day for the second regular anchor. Michelle asked Erin a question. Erin did not even look at Michelle, let alone answer her question.
So, our comparison with the “Bipasha – Katrina” sort of stuff may not be far-fetched after all.
Listen to Katrina speak about the “Bipasha – Katrina” feud in her interview clip below:
Will we ever hear from Erin or Maria in such an explicit manner?
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