Yes I agree but I don't care about that. So long as they report the economic reports AS they are released and not after a commercial or between programs then I think that's good enough. The fact that they are on average 1 -5 minutes delayed on 80% of the key reports is insanity for a News company in my opinion and totally unprofessional.
CNBC is not designed for such. Therefore, your using it for the wrong reason. Simply, stop trying to use them for trading purposes especially considering there's a reason why they intentionally are at commercial when most of the economic reports are released. As a trader and if timely alerts or info about economic reports is important to your trading... You should be using one of the fee-based online sources or subscribe to one of those satalite services offered by Bloomberg if you can get it in your area. Too many traders try to use CNBC for something its not designed for (trade decisions) and then they get frustrated that CNBC doesn't meet their needs. For investing info...I find CNBC very useful and its not all about stocks. Heck, hang out in some of the popular free trader chat rooms and you'll get the key economic report release numbers much faster than CNBC... Usually because there a few traders in the chat rooms that subscribe to breaking news alerts considering its important for their trade decisions. Mark