Mad Money is an American finance television program hosted by Jim Cramer that began airing on CNBC on March 14, 2005. Its main focus is investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded stocks. In a notable departure from the CNBC programming style prior to its arrival, Mad Money presents itself in an entertainment-style format rather than a news broadcasting one. Cramer defines "mad money" as the money one "can use to invest in stocks ... not retirement money, which you want in 401K or an IRA, a savings account, bonds, or the most conservative of dividend-paying stocks." Mad Money replaced Dylan Ratigan's Bullseye for the 6 p.m. Eastern Time slot. On January 8, 2007, CNBC began airing reruns of the show at 11 p.m. Eastern Time, on Monday through Friday, and at 4 a.m. Eastern Time, on Saturdays.
In March 2012, the program became a part of what was formerly branded as NBC All Night in the nominal 3:07 a.m. ET/2:07 a.m. timeslot on weeknights, replacing week-delayed repeats of NBC's late night talk shows. In that form, only the video for the program was presented on a 16:9 screen with gray branded windowboxing andpillarboxing, with all enhanced business information, including the CNBC Ticker, removed. Because of the scheduling of local station's 4 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. newscasts to airEarly Today depending on how a station schedules its overnight programming (even if it airs at the regular time in the Eastern and Pacific time zones for instance, seven minutes would have to be cut-off to fit in Early Today and a local newscast starting at 4:30 a.m.), it is subject to local pre-emption, including by NBC O&O's.
On August 4, 2014, Mad Money was first broadcast in full 1080i HD, resulting in the removal of the sidebar that was seen on all of CNBC's other trading-day programming, until the sidebar itself was permanently removed altogether on October 13, 2014. The NBC presentation displays the native widescreen HD picture, albeit with the CNBC Ticker space still filled in with gray windowboxing.
