CNBC Cancels Reruns of Franchise Documentary

On December 19th I wrote a blog about CNBC's Untold Story of Franchising documentary. In that blog I talked about what I thought the story got right and what the story missed for the franchising industry and the franchises they highlighted. Apparently I neglected to highlight a major criticism of the show!

I did not spend a lot of time talking about negative spotlight that was shining brightly on Cold Stone Creamery, primarily because I have not worked with them and don't have enough information to have an informed opinion. However, those closest to the details found many flaws with the Cold Stone Creamery segment and hired the top franchise attorney in the country to represent the franchisees and a separate law firm to represent the franchisor. Robert Zarco, the new franchisee attorney, said in a letter that CNBC acted "irresponsibly, wrongfully and with malicious intent, negligently, and with reckless disregard for the interests of the franchisor, the franchisor’s employees, the franchisees’ employees, and consumers." Now CNBC has "temporarily" cancelled planned reruns of the documentary to investigate the facts as presented in the original airing.

This was not the first piece of controversy about CNBC's "The Untold Story of Franchising." After the original airing, CNBC posted a clarification that the CEO in charge of P&G's franchise subsidiary said that Mr. Clean and Tide franchise royalties were based on net sales instead of gross sales, which would be a good deal for franchisees. It turns out that what P&G calls net sales is what other companies call gross sales. As if current and potential franchisees need something else to be confused about.