Ratings at CNBC, home of the most popular business-news shows, are soaring this week amid financial train wrecks like the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. and the bailout of insurance giant AIG, the Wall Street Journal reports. The cable channel’s top programs, “Mad Money” and “Fast Money,” each attracted around a half-million viewers, their largest audiences ever. Bloomberg News also had one of its biggest ratings days, while Fox Business Network, still a fledgling channel, declined to provide ratings data, the paper says.
—Greg Baumann