The NYTimes' Brian Stelter writes about how the economic crisis has been very, very good to CNBC. "The week of Sept. 14," Stelter writes, "was the highest-rated one in CNBC's 19-year history, with 502,000 viewers during the business day (counted as the 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. hours by CNBC). Last week the ratings remained high, with an average 441,000 viewers through Thursday."

"When there's an aggressive move to one extreme or the other CNBC engagement surges," CNBC president Mark Hoffman tells Stelter. And that's when CNBC's deep bench jumps into action. Says SVP of business news Jonathan Wald, "If you see anchors on the set with phones to their ears and computers at the ready, you know it means they are reporting right up until the time the red light goes on."

Stelter points out that "ratings have also soared for the Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC in recent weeks. (Presumably they have also increased for the business channels Fox Business Network and Bloomberg, but their ratings are not publicly reported by Nielsen."