CNBCs Squawk Box looks to compete with Fox Business

CNBC must miss former anchor Maria Bartiromo, who decamped to Fox Business Channel earlier this year.

The Englewood Cliffs, NJ-based CNBC is spending big bucks renting studio space in Midtown in order to set up its Squawk Box studio just two blocks north of the Fox Business headquarters on the Avenue of the Americas.

Squawk is hosted by Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Competition is so tough, top business executives tell us, that CNBC is stepping up its haranguing of guests about appearing on any parts of the Fox Business lineup and has threatened these executives with banishment from CNBC if they appear on Fox first.

Booking wars are nothing new, but it seems some of CNBCs hosts lack a team spirit, our sources say. The culture there seems to be kill your colleague, one person quipped over bookings. They [the hosts] seem to think theyre more important than the guests.

When you are first in business worldwide, sometimes confidence is misinterpreted as arrogance, and if that were ever the case, we would certainly be apologetic, said a spokesman for CNBC.

Tinseltown isnt known for its soft side, but when it comes to watching the North Koreans (allegedly) open Sonys kimono, theres a distinct lack of schadenfreude and more of it could have been us.

Hackers breached Sonys internal systems and illegally released a handful of upcoming movies online, then dumped data exposing the most intimate details of Sonys deals, employee contracts and actors salaries, among other things.

Sony just never seems to be able to dig out from unfortunate situations.

In 2012, its factories got swamped in the tsunami. Then in 2013, Sony came under attack by hedge-fund operator Dan Loeb, who shamed the studio, saying its movies sucked and the entertainment unit should be sold.

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CNBCs Squawk Box looks to compete with Fox Business