CNBC launching ‘TechCheck’ to replace ‘Squawk Alley’ in April

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CNBC will introduce a new show, “TechCheck,” that will replace “Squawk Alley” April 5, 2021 at 11 a.m. eastern.

The live program will be the first CNBC broadcast anchored from multiple locations across the country with CNBC’s Jon Fortt and Carl Quintanilla on the east coast and Deirdre Bosa on the west coast.

CNBC’s Senior Media & Entertainment Reporter Julia Boorstin will play a key role from Los Angeles, delivering reporting, analysis and interviews around streaming, social and the convergence of media and technology. Todd Bonin will serve as senior executive producer.

“TechCheck” will use CNBC’s industry reporters including Josh Lipton and Kate Rooney as well as the strong CNBC.com tech team breaking significant tech-centric stories. Additionally, the program will evolve to have important digital components across a variety of CNBC platforms.

The program will focus on the universe of opportunities exciting today’s investors from FAANG stocks, to emerging public companies, to red-hot startups rising from the sector.

“Investors now have embraced a broad universe of technology stocks and understand deeply how those companies are changing the way we live,” said Dan Colarusso, senior vice president of CNBC Business News in the statement. “‘TechCheck’ will be the place where CNBC plugs into their thinking and arms them to make the most of those opportunities.”

“Squawk Alley” debuted in 2014, replacing a third hour of “Squawk On the Street” and focuses on tech news, a practice “TechCheck” will continue. “On the Street” is itself a spinoff of the network’s signature morning show “Squawk Box,” which debuted in 1995.

The name “Squawk Alley” has similarities to both “alley” and “valley” — both terms sometimes used to refer to regions of the country heavy in big tech while also have a convenient connection to the “On the Street” title, which itself is a direct reference to Wall Street.

“Squawk Box” and its various franchises derive their names from the intercom systems found on stock trading floors.

The move to brand the hour outside of the “Squawk” franchise makes it clearer that the show is tech focused and also not entirely tied to traditional market coverage.

The idea of spreading anchors out is not new.

CNBC sister network MSNBC tried a bicoastal program back in 2005 — the short lived “Connected: Coast to Coast” hosted by Ron Regan (the son of former the former president who has a different middle name) and Monica Crowley.

Among other programs who use similar formats, one of the most prominent attempts at this format was “ABC World News Tonight” starting in 1978.

This saw Frank Reynolds anchoring from Washington, D.C., Max Robinson in Chicago and Peter Jennings in London. The idea was that Reynolds would focus on political news, Robinson on national headlines and Jennings on international stories, roughly corresponding to their respective city assignments.

The format lasted until 1983.

A veteran tech journalist for over 20 years, Jon Fortt has served as an ensemble member of “Squawk Alley” since the program’s inception in 2014. He has conducted interviews with some of the biggest names in tech, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, IBM’s Ginni Rometty and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.

Fortt joined CNBC in 2010 as a technology correspondent, based at the network’s Silicon Valley bureau where he was responsible for covering companies, startups and trends driving innovation in the technology industry for CNBC’s Business Day programming and CNBC.com. For more than four years, he has also hosted Fortt Knox, a digital series featuring deep conversations with leaders and innovators in tech and beyond.

Prior to CNBC, Fortt was a senior writer for Fortune magazine, reporting on tech heavy weights such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft. Fortt began his career at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s hometown newspaper, where he was one of the first reporters to cover Apple.

Carl Quintanilla is an anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” and “Squawk on the Street.” Since joining NBCUniversal in 1999, Quintanilla has covered a wide range of stories for both CNBC and NBC News, where he was a New York- and Chicago-based correspondent for “Today” and “NBC Nightly News,” including the Olympic games, presidential elections, and international military conflicts from Israel to Iraq.

As part of NBC’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he shared a national Emmy Award, DuPont Award, RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award and broadcast’s highest honor, Peabody Award.

Deirdre Bosa has served as a technology reporter for CNBC in the network’s San Francisco bureau, CNBC@1Market, since October 2016. Her beat includes the biggest names in tech from Amazon to Alphabet, key players in China’s tech scene like Alibaba and Huawei, and Silicon Valley’s largest disruptors from Airbnb to Uber to WeWork. Bosa joined CNBC in 2012 covering the markets and the economy from London and Singapore. She also co-anchored morning programs including “Squawk Box Asia,” “Squawk Box Europe” and “Worldwide Exchange.” Prior to CNBC, Bosa was an anchor and reporter for CCTV News International based in Beijing.

Julia Boorstin has been with CNBC for nearly 15 years covering media with a special focus on the intersection of media and technology. During her time at CNBC, she has created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list and events highlighting private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. She also helped launch CNBC’s Closing the Gap franchise on closing gender gaps and she reported a documentary on the future of television, “Stay Tuned…The Future of TV.” Boorstin joined CNBC from Fortune magazine where she was a reporter and writer for six years.