Rose Bowl Parade, Pasadena, Southern California, 2015 -- Ties Record For Coldest Day This Date

32 degrees when the parade started. Ties the record for coldest January First in recorded history for Pasadena, first set back in 1952.

On ABC I note that the camera view is of the parade route turning to the right, or turning to the east, unto Colorado Boulevard.

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena, Jan and Dean
I lived in South Pasadena, just a mile or so south of Colorado Boulevard for three years many years ago; the first of four years in southern California was in Highland Park.

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CNBC 2014 -- Yeah, Not So Good

As mentioned many times, I don't watch television as a rule (exception: sports). We don't get cable so I see CNBC only when I'm traveling.

I see the 2014 ratings are in. Don sent me the link. ZeroHedge is reporting:

The bottom line: according to Nielsen, is that despite the S&P recording a whopping 53 all time highs, and the Dow rising over 18,000, the channel that was once must watch financial TV for mom and pop, and has since devolved into endless cheerleading of failed policies and rigged markets, namely CNBC, just suffered its worst year in, well, ever. 

CNBC's Total Business Day segment (M-F 9:30a-5p), just delivered its lowest rated year since 1995 with P2+ and delivered its lowest rated year ever since 1992 with the 25-54 demographic.

Much more at the link.
 
I think a lot of this has to do with personalities: get the right personalities and folks will tune in. Losing Erin Burnett was a big loss -- some years ago. In my mind that's when things began going downhill.

But I agree with ZeroHedge: it seems the majority of talking heads spun stories that favored one political party more than the other, which is not good when a) business, generally, should have the facade of neutrality; and, b) the viewers are probably not aligned the same politically.

It seemed there was always a lot of "inside" stories: Ackman and Herbalife; Greenberg and Starbucks or whatever the pairings were; I've forgotten.

I've talked about this before. The producers need to schedule interviews two or three days ahead of time, which means producers need to decide on the story lines for the day two or three days in advance. The early morning show, Squawk Box, did the best with breaking news -- mostly the market opening, but then the rest of the day, the agenda that had been decided two or three days earlier played itself out even if there were more important news stories breaking.

When I last watched CNBC, it appeared the big story was the impending implosion of Greece. Didn't happen. But it looks like CNBC is being given another opportunity with the election of a most leftist politician in a most leftist county. Is Venezuela the new world's Greece, or is Greece the old world's Venezuela? Inquiring minds want to know.