After months of media speculation, Glenn Beck and Fox News have agreed to break up. They’ll still see each other, of course, since they’ll be cooperating on a “variety of television projects … as well as content for other platforms,” but the days of tuning in to Beck at 5 p.m. every weekday are officially numbered. In a joint release, it was announced that Beck “intends to transition off of his daily program, the third-highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.”
I’d argued recently that Beck and Fox were greater together than the sum of their parts, but then Andrew Napolitano sat in for Beck one day in March and practically matched Beck’s audience figures. Faster than you can say Wally Pipp, Beck and Fox started hedging about their long-term future together. Beck, whose contract runs until December, hinted of building his own channel, and he’s already invested in a large web presence at GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com. Plus, he still puts in three hours a day on the radio.
But will his audience follow him to a website or to a new television station? His television ratings were way down this year, but a bigger problem today for Beck is his rapidly aging audience. According to Nielsen, Beck lost nearly 50 percent of his under-50 viewers in the past year. Fifty percent! That means the majority of his loyal viewers are older folks who might be less likely to click off the tube so they can stream some online video of Beck’s blackboard lectures. They liked him at Fox at 5. But if he’s not there, it seems likely their viewing attitude will be, “Meh, well let’s see what this new guy with the hair has to say about Obama.” We’re all creatures of habit — habits that only solidify as we age.
So Beck might have a problem without the Fox wrapping. Could The Blaze turn into a conservative Huffington Post? Does Beck have a following that would support GlennTV? Hard to say. Or does Beck bet heavily on radio, where his style, opinions, and politics are perfectly suited for the medium and the folks who still listen.
Where do you think Beck belongs if not on Fox News? If you had to bet, how do you envision consuming your Beck bits next year at this time: TV, radio, or online?
Read more:
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The Glenn Beck Network. Yes, it could happen.
Glenn Beck hints at Fox News departure
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Glenn Beck launches hot and bothered new website
Bet he’ll announce he’s running for president in a couple of weeks.
Please let this be true.
Why on Earth would you want that to be true? He’s WAY too extreme…not to mention clinically insane.
If it’s true, the Republicans will for sure lose, that’s why.
No, he’s replacing Michael on The Office.
LOL
glennbeck is the most loyal supporter of america, we gets this damaging disaster news from no other source. you never see george soros’ damage to america anyother place. wasn’t a senator goldwater, years ago, who hunted communists a gift to america? glenn beck can too. fox news is a looser.
They keep the same friends, and an evil shadow creeps across the limited light of a once-peaceful valley…
HAHAHAH ooooohhh man thats good!!! are you saying Glenn and Fox are evil?? Whooo that’s original stuff!!!!
Settle down there, DeanL. You’ll be able to discuss it all with Beck at the next Klan rally. Maybe you two can hold hands and quote Mein Kampf to each other over a bottle of ethylene glycol.
Or that he’s invented a time machine made out of his toenail clippings and the power of persuasion.
In reply to JK, by the way..
It’s a shame this crackpot is leaving. He was the perfect example of the lunatic fringe. He drove Independents and centrists to vote Democratic in droves. We Democrats thank you for your service, Glenn.
Yeah – we saw how many of those voted in droves for Dems in 2010 elections. You just keep on telling yourself those fairy tales!
Nice name LOL and I love all the labels you place on someone else. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Get your gold while you still can, Deb!
Can’t wait until all you lefty crakheads see all that Glenn has stated come true. You don;t even have the intelligence to even research the info yourselves and see that what he says is true. We will go down as a nation because of idiots like you who don’t think it will happen here until it does. Just like they laughed at Noah who spent years building the arch until the flood waters hit and then the scoffers cried to be save. They all died and I wonder as they gulped gallons of flood waters what went through their mines they said about noah as they drowned. This is what will happen to us when it hits, oh I guess Glenn was right. To late and bye bye.
You are really on the juice if you think that Beck is a has been. The reason he isn’t reaching the under 50 audience, is because they are, for the most part, working age people who don’t get in from work in time to watch the greatest show on TV. I’m sure that most of them tape the show and watch afterwards.
What will old shut-ins and snake handlers watch now? Guess they still have buffoons like O’Reilly and Hannity, but those guys come on after many Fox viewers are in bed.
Antiques Roadshow?
Beck belongs nowhere on TV that requires an honecst, serious evaluation of reality. He’s a clown, a huckster and nothing more.
I’ve found that he’s told less lies than Obama since the “O” became President. Research that yourself, A.B.
@Deb,
I have researched that, and you are wrong. Glenn Beck lives in a dark fantasy world of his making, and doesn’t know about truth or reality.
Deb is Beck’s former meth dealer. She knows what she is talking about.
I guess regular lies aren’t good enough for tea-baggers any more: they’re totally addicted… now they have to lie about who lies! What’s next. I’ll get started.
“Deb lies less about who lies the most”.
That “popping” sound you hear is Deb’s brain.
Do you have some proof to that statement? Or is your own opinion of such weight that other should say “baaa” and blindly follow??
I’m not Beck fan, but really people USE YOUR OWN BRAIN
And STOP letting the TV talking heads think for you.
And where oh where is there actual reality on tv? Answer: No Where
Did you know that GE paid zero in corp taxes this year? Same deal with Warren Buffet.
Keep listening to MSNBC/NBC (I’m a Cnn fan) but REALIZE YOU ARE HEARING THE NEWS THAT THE DEMOCRATS PAID FOR. With Tax breaks and sweetie pie deals.
Same deal with Fox and the GOP.
So A.B do all a favor
When you call Beck a Huckster add Olbermann too
Not that I wish this on anyone…. but wasn’t he claiming some time ago that he was going to be blind in 6 months?
He stopped masturbating, so everything’s ok now
and you are still able to see Crispy?
I got LASIK
Oh his sh!t eating grin is from that???
I’m just a non partisan sammich so I don’t have anything to add to this conversation except one rambling sentence that will end in an incorrect punctuation?
And you have nothing better to do?
ironic…given how much you’ve commented so far…
Deb’s one of the astro-turfers in the “grass roots” movement. She’s PAID to post (I have no way of proving that, but then again, Deb has no way of proving her lies, so I guess call it “even” on the rhetoric scorecard)
The History Channel calls. After all they have programs about alligator hunters, alien investigators and pawn shop operators. Glenn Beck seems a good match.
He belongs in the forest where trees fall silently.
WE all know Beck is going on tour with Charlie he needed a boost and Beck needed a job.
As an ex-Mormon and graduate of Brigham Young University, I hope Beck stays out there ranting and raving. Maybe the conservative working-class will finally realize the basic us-and-them mentality that saturates the conservative part of our society and is dragging us all down morally and financially. // Jean Clelland-Morin
i will watch glenn beck on whatever channel hes on and im 26. my wife isnt a conservative and even got her to watch him
You’re 26… you must be Mormon. they only do as they’re told. can’t think for themselves.
That photo cracks me up. He misspelled Oligarch.
I guess he couldn’t think of a word that started with C
I saw that too–hilarious!
He can’t broadcast in Canada along with the rest of Fox news because; Canada’s Radio Act requires that “a licenser may not broadcast … any false or misleading news.” The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom.
Do you liberals think it’s OK to plagiarize? Because your comment is copied verbatim from “Fox News’ Lies Keep Them Out of Canada” by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Of course, he, and you, are wrong—Fox News is carried on numerous cable TV systems in Canada, including Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw Cable, and many others.
Ahem that is baloney. I am in the capital of Canada and watch him on Fox everyday at 5. Yes on normal cable. I pay a couple of bucks extra for the news package which also includes CNN, msnbc, etc. From Rogers Cable. And a model? Ever read the Canadian constitution? Oh and when your child needs back surgery but he has to wait oh indefinitely until I started to haunt doctors while he was bleeding yes bleeding for MONTHS until my pediatrician finally found a surgeon that had been allowed some time to perform the surgery in a village hospital out of town …and my child had to ride in the car home the same day with an open hole in his back. Look doctors are great here, they are not given enough OR time at all. And if they order tests or an extra mammogram in one year they get in trouble. You have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about. Do you know anything about the language laws here? Did you know that in Quebec, if you hang an English sign anywhere you will be charged? The reverse incidentally is not true for the rest of Canada. I could go on and on. My point is every system is going to be flawed. One should research the facts, nay, live them before they decide what’s “better”.
I bet you’re not really living in Canada. Your doctor story is obviously untrue and based what some Americans believe Canadian health care to be like.
You are obviously NOT Canadian.
Boy, I’m sitting here in Canada (near Victoria Trail in Edmonton, I shop at the Belmont Sobeys, I take the LRT at Clareview; yes, I am really here) and I know a lot of other people. I sure would remember hearing medical stories that came anywhere near yours. Instead, a colleague is moving forward at a steady pace with his daughter’s back surgery, emergencies have been taken care of as needed, and the biggest failing I’ve encountered is that the additional health/dental insurance I have to purchase barely covers anything. But the basic medical stuff? Very solid.
And yes, we get Fox here. I have no idea if it’s still being provided through my Shaw package, as I never watch it, but I have stumbled across it in my listings before.
Glenn Beck is Howard Beale. Beck is the likeness modern-day fictional character from the movie Network (1976) only for Fox and only to get ratings. Its all about ratings baby. I will follow him nowhere….
The confirmation today that the man who can’t tell the difference between a socialist, a fascist, and an altruist is leaving his daily show on Fixed News, is a great moment for the collective intelligence of American discourse.
Lock Ness Glenn Beck is not about intelligent American discourse, he is about ratings. So, he will say anything that panders to the Fox News audience in the name of ratings. Glenn Beck started as a shock-jock DJ in the Seattle area, and still is only now he has his own hour-long show on TV. It is just entertainment — news today is just a synonym for entertainment.
Yea right, with a name like loch ness you can’t tell the difference between real monsters and fake ones. Ha ha from big foot.