Bartiromo or Burnett: “Who Will Be the Face of CNBC?”

Some will find it shopworn, but MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman is shining the spotlight once again on the long-running ‘Bartiromo vs. Burnett’ chatter. “The question,” he writes today, “boils down to this: Who will be the face of CNBC?”

Friedman’s renewed focus is because of the arrival in May of new CNBC SVP Jeremy Pink. “Anytime you have a new boss, changes are inevitable,” Friedman tells TVNewser. “The two most prominent people [on-air at the cabler] are Maria and Erin. And they’re very different in their approaches to broadcasting. I’m beginning to wonder if CNBC will follow one or the other.”

As Friedman asks in his column, “the no-frills, iconic Bartiromo, who has been the top anchor there for many years? Or, can the younger, breezier, fast-charging Burnett over take her? CNBC has to find a way to keep both stars…happy or risk losing one or both of them at some point.”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.