Fox News With No Beck?
Lauren Fink, Ed. ·
Mar 23, 2011 at 7:03am
Looks like Glenn Beck is considering leaving Fox News at the end of the year, indicated by him recently snagging a Fox executive for his media company, Mercury Radio Arts. The NYT also says he's been increasing his staff (including Ricochet's own Emily Esfahani Smith) and is contemplating starting his own TV channel. Can he pull off an Oprah? How will Fox News fare without its fiery talker?
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Jan '11
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Glenn Beck can take a permanent vacation as far as I'm concerned. He's a demagogue and an egoist. He's tried to be the next Rush, but without first principles, and says what he says to increase his audience share, not promote true conservativism. His schtick is populism with a veneer of right wing ornament. The sooner the conservative movement can distance itself from his ilk, the better off it will be. I have no doubt Fox can fill his shoes quite easily.
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Fox News will be fine. Beck, not so. While I listen and watch clips on occasion, the man is like a hard liquor, an acquired taste if you can handle it in moderation, but too much and you're on your knees praying to the porcelain god.
The trick to making it in cable is what you can charge per subscriber. Right now, what he's offering is not unique enough to draw substantial numbers.
Oprah purchased and rebranded Discovery Health. At the time that was purchased it generated $18 million in advertising revenue and charged 7 cents per sub per month for an additional $64 million. Oprah wants that subscriber fee tripled. I don't think that what she offers is enough to demand it.
Sep '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
I think subsciption TV and radio is the future, mainly because the advertising model is dying. The web and anything subscription-based allows for targeted marketing.
People are no longer willing to sit through the number of advertisements necessary to support a show. The only way I can listen to talk radio live is by turning it off from :55 to :07 ---- :18 to :22----- :30 to :35 etc. those are the commercial/news times.
TV channels are either recorded or paused on DVR during commercials. I'm not the only one doing this.
I find my ricochet podcasts at $3.47 a good exchange for commercial free listening.
Jun '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
You really couldn't be more wrong about his goals. Beck is only a political animal in terms of defining and promoting America's founding principles, as he sees them. In his case, through a religious lens. He's nothing like Rush Limbaugh, and never tried to be. Unless they're what everyone is talking about, he has very little interest in day-to-day legislation or congressional procedure, and it shows. He's a political dunce. But that's not his focus. His focus is morals and ideology. It's just that right now, government has become so big and intrusive that every big social and moral issue has become political. That's the way it is, but it shouldn't be that way.
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Poor Emily! She keeps bouncing from one start-up venture to another. Where's the security?
I like Beck's radio show better than his teevee show. The same could be said for Rush (though Rush is like Secretariat, in that comparisons break down between him and the field).
Oct '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
I have never considered Beck a conservative. He is a Libertarian with somewhat conservative views. He doesn't speak for anyone other than himself.
Fox News was on the air and successful back when Glenn was a struggling morning show host. They don't need him. Whether he needs them, we will just have to wait and see.
Edited on Mar 23, 2011 at 8:44amMay '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Rush says plainly that his main concern is ratings, even though he speaks his mind. If Beck's main concern was ratings, he would not have tried to teach Americans history on a blackboard. Beck is genuine and admirable, if not always right.
Glenn Beck did more to feed the Tea Party movement than any other individual. He has inspired millions of Americans to take an interest in American history. I wish him well.
Yes, FOX did fine without him, but he had an exceptionally large audience for his time slot. They will feel the loss.
Jan '11
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Even Oprah is having trouble pulling off an Oprah.
Jun '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Nice one Franco. This is my tactic exactly. Even the hosts do their own commercials during their airtime. Drives me nuts.
Aug '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
I suspect this has been said before on Ricochet, but here it goes: He kind of reminds me of Dr. Gene Scott.
There is something googly around the eyes, something almost off his meds-y about him.
I suspect Fox News is a contsraining influence on him. But without someone to keep him in check this dude is just Gene Scott waiting to happen. Gene also went rouge (left his denomination) and started an independent TV empire.
Thank God Emily will be there to hide the crazy sauce.
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Opportunity! Let's put together a Ricochet show to fill his time slot!
Aug '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Love him or hate him, his news team might have just done us all a huge favor. Who knows?
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Good riddance.
Jan '11
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Fox could just have Andrew Napolitano fill Beck's slot.
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Agreed. Napolitano's Freedom Watch would be a good replacement.
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
My favorite Beck Teevee moment was the Eric Massa interview. What a glorious train wreck. Good presence of mind to tell the camera at the end "I've wasted your time."
Jul '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Tommy De Seno: Opportunity! Let's put together a Ricochet show to fill his time slot! · Mar 23 at 9:54am
Put together a pitch, that would be awesome! Gotta have Klavan videos and Robinson Uncommon Knowledge. Lileks in mustard muscle shirts on muscular conservatism. Rob and Mark calling in to report on their latest cruise. A Claire piece on the habits of Turkish taxi drivers and what that bodes for the Armageddon. And VDH as the anti-Beck, a man who knows his stuff cold and has never mugged for the camera in his life.
I got my first prolonged exposure to Beck Monday in a waiting room. He is working a lot of the right issues and "gets it," but he mugs for the camera and does not always appear to take his own point seriously, even when the topic is deadly serious. The showmanship seems misapplied a lot of the time, undermining his point. He seems to have Rush's weaknesses but not his strengths.
But I am certainly not his audience.
Nov '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
I used to think Beck was, like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, a victim of left wing hysteria, a reasonable guy whose right-of-center (way right of center in Rush's case) views made him a target for smear tactics from the so-far-to-the-left-they-don't-even-know-where-the-center-is-anymore crowd.
Then I watched about ten minutes of his show.
Dude is nuts. I have no idea why respectable intellects like Emily or SE Cupp would associate themselves with him.
May '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Interesting that we all seem to believe the Times' reporting on this subject. Glenn Beck seems to be one of the rare subjects that brings both left and center-right together in frantic derision. Palin would be another.
For those claiming, "Dude is nuts," why not share one of the, surely, dozens of examples that led you to this conclusion?
Somehow I think Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are more opposed to your "first principles" than is Beck.
Nov '10
Re: Fox News With No Beck?
Does anyone know much about the Wall Builders organization that he touts so much? I find their episodes on the Founding, particularly the Black Founders, very interesting.