Glenn Beck Announces Imminent Divorce from FOX, Left-wingers Rejoice (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on April 7, 2011
Blast from the past, March 2009: Glenn Beck asked CT AG Blumenthal uncomfortable questions about AIG bonuses & Rep. Dodd demanding campaign money from AIG
Love him or loath him, it’s been impossible to ignore him. The controversial conservative, quick-to-cry Glenn Beck, who has been attacked for years by the Soros-run Media Matters and other liberal groups (and who has mentioned for a while now that he is toying with starting his own cable station), announced on yesterday’s Glenn Beck Show that he’ll be leaving FOX at the end of this year.
We don’t have cable television at the Frugal Mansion, so what I know of Beck’s TV show is largely from YouTube and media and blog recaps/vents the following day. What I do know is that even on a bad ratings day for Beck’s show, it stomped in the dust what most of the lefty news programs brought in viewer-wise.
Here’s Beck on yesterday’s show, announcing his upcoming break with the network.
Glenn Beck Says Goodbye in Advance | April 6, 2011
All good things come to an end, and while Beck may not have his slot on FOX after this year, he won’t be going quietly into that good night. I anticipate that whatever Beck attempts, he’ll be successful — his conservative values and genuine love of this country resonate with millions of Americans.
He may have gone over the top at times, but he got our attention and woke many of us up, didn’t he?
Beck was one of the first on TV to expose the “shadow government” of Obama’s myriad radical czars, ACORN and SEIU fraud and thuggery, the Cloward-Piven strategy, the roots of socialism, and other nefarious doings in or associated with this present administration that the Obama-adoring left-wing media often chose to ignore, bury, whitewash, or mock. Beck tackled US history and educating Americans on our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the guiding principles under which our nation was formed.
A one-of-a-kind, modern-day Howard Beale who torqued off the left every single day. Van Jones, at the time earning six figures of taxpayer money as Pres. Obama’s “green jobs” czar, went on a personal vendetta to smear Beck and to encourage major businesses to boycott advertising on Beck’s show. Not sure how that fell under his “green jobs” duties, but it no longer matters. Jones resigned from his cushy White House position under a cloud of disgrace, but Beck continued to be attacked by left-wing organizations and draw in the audiences.
From KTAR News, Glenn Beck’s Fox show ending:
NEW YORK (AP) – Glenn Beck later this year will end his Fox News Channel talk show, which has sunk in the ratings and has suffered from an advertiser boycott.
Fox and Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, said Wednesday they will stay in business creating other projects for Fox television and digital, starting with some documentaries Beck is preparing.
Beck was a quick burn on Fox News Channel. Almost immediately after joining the network in January 2009, he doubled the ratings at his afternoon time slot. Fans found his conservative populism entertaining, while Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert described Beck’s “crank up the crazy and rip off the knob” moments.
He was popular with tea party activists and drew thousands of people to the National Mall in Washington last August for a “restoring honor” rally.
Yet some of his statements were getting him in trouble, and critics appealed to advertisers to boycott his show last summer after he said President Barack Obama had “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”
Beck said that he went to Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and CEO, in January to discuss ways they could continue to work together without the daily show.
“Half of the headlines say he’s been canceled,” Ailes said. “The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.”
[...]
Beck said ratings for his television show were not an issue, noting that “we have buried the competition in every sense.” His supporters believe that the recent decline is more a reflection that ratings were abnormally high early last year.
“Call CNN and MSNBC and ask them if they’d like to have Glenn’s ratings at 5 in the afternoon,” Ailes said.
Ailes emphasized that Fox and Beck will continue to work together.
“We like each other,” he said in a dual interview with Beck. “We’re not drawing pictures of each other on the walls, having staff fights and stealing each other’s food out of the refrigerator or any of that stuff.”
From Newsmax, Why Fox Is Saying Goodbye to Glenn Beck:
Fox News host Glenn Beck took viewers by surprise Wednesday with the announcement that his 5 p.m. program will “transition off” the network.
“I am going to leave this program later this year, but I am not leaving Fox,” Beck told viewers at the top of his TV program Wednesday.
Beck’s program is the nation’s third-highest rated cable news program, attracting nearly 2.2 million viewers a night.
Fox News and Beck stated that they will continue to “produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties.”
The news surprised millions of loyal Beck fans, but rumors had swirled for months that Beck might be leaving his 5 p.m. slot. There had been widespread speculation that Beck would be expanding his own subscription-based television programming and might even launch his own cable channel.
The news of Beck’s departure from the 5 p.m. time slot on Fox triggered mixed reactions from across the media universe.
Liberals predictably took their shots at a host whose ratings dominance was never even close to being challenged by competitors at left-leaning networks.
“Glenn Beck is leaving Fox. Where’s he gonna go? The Oprah Network?” tweeted The View co-host Joy Behar. She added: “I give him 20 minutes alone in a room with Rosie” O’Donnell.
Some left-wing activists suggested that their campaign of intimidation targeting Beck’s advertisers had contributed to the decision not to renew his 5 p.m. show.
TV advertising consultant Adam Armbruster, who has appeared regularly on Fox News, called Beck “controversial, a real lightning rod for many advertisers.”
Advertisers, he observed, often prefer to avoid anything controversial.
“But you also have to remember that some enjoy controversy . . . Glenn Beck got a lot of attention for Fox News. The bottom line is that advertisers love attention,” he said.
Controversy aside, Beck in many ways has redefined the standard for success in the 5 p.m. time slot. Although his ratings had cooled from the height of his popularity, he continued to provide Fox’s prime-time lineup with an extraordinarily strong lead-in viewership.
“I still think if he was not the bane of the liberal media opinion-leader world, there wouldn’t be this kind of pressure on Fox,” Boston University communications professor Tobe Berkovitz tells Newsmax.”I mean, who wants to get rid of someone with those kinds of numbers at 5 in the afternoon? Who the hell else is ever going to pull those kinds of numbers?”
From Ace of Spades HQ:
I’m not a Glenn Beck TV show fan (but man do his radio bits kill me). I think I had two problems with his show: First, as an adult male, I have a subconscious and irrational dislike of being taught to. I’m not saying this is Glenn Beck’s problem; I’m saying it’s mine. But I’m sure there are a lot of people who are subconsciously resentful of a professorial sort of lecture.
The other problem, from what I saw, is that he seemed to have Big Theories like every week. I just don’t think you can come up with a Big Theory every week. Not without an awful lot of stinkers. Giving so much of his program over to Big Theory Explication seemed to me to be a mistake. I just always wondered where that funny, loose guy from the radio went at 5 PM every day. He just became this very jumped-up Mannichean prophet.
I’d even watch his Big Theory specials. As long as I knew they were not being padded with dubious sub-theories and shaky assertions, and we’re being produced just to fill the hour.
I’m sort of thinking this was largely Beck’s call. Because that show must have been pretty exhausting to do.
About the author
Comments