Posted on 01/29/2016 9:20:33 PM PST by drewh
Kraig Kitchin will stay with the company, but resigned from the top job after friction with fellow Beck executive Jonathan Schreiber. A ‘mass exodus’ of staff may follow.
In what knowledgeable observers say is a sign of increasing turmoil in Glenn Beck’s troubled media empire, Beck’s longtime mentor and corporate executive, Kraig Kitchin, has quit as CEO of The Blaze.
Kitchin’s replacement, Stewart Padveen, a digital startup entrepreneur who joined Beck’s company last summer, will be the fourth leader of The Blaze since late 2014.
Kitchin, 54, who took over operations of Beck’s conservative-leaning subscription digital and cable television enterprise last June—after two previous CEOs abruptly left in the space of six months—is resigning along with two other senior executives: Jeremy Price, director of advertising sales, and Liz Julis, director of marketing.
Both are based in New York, 1,500 miles removed from corporate headquarters in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
Several other key employees, including at least two senior producers based in The Blaze’s shrinking New York operation, are expected to follow them out the door.
A source close to the situation predicted a “mass exodus†from the New York studios, which are housed in a largely unoccupied 35,000 square-foot space at Midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park, previously rented by Yahoo, under a 10-year lease costing Beck’s privately held company an estimated $2 million a year.
Kitchin—who co-founded Premiere Radio Networks three decades ago and has worked with personalities as diverse as Rush Limbaugh, Ryan Seacrest, Whoopi Goldberg, and Beck—tried to put the best face on his resignation in a company-wide email sent out Thursday night.
He described his apparently self-imposed demotion as a result of outside business obligations.
“Our organization--The Blaze--deserves and needs an exclusively focused leader and that’s something I cannot provide, given existing commitments I choose to honor,†Kitchin wrote, adding that “I’m not leaving this company. I’ll stay with The Blaze, working every day as the Interim Head of Sales with a focus on finding the right person for that position, assisting in the transition, on advertiser growth, program development, and industry relations.â€
Trump’s like God or something. He’s our savior, our messiah. All hail the wise and benevolent and all-knowing Donald Duck (PBUH).
No, Trump is a patriot, and he was also born in the USA, not the USeh.
When was Cruz’s naturalization ceremony? Or has he been a naturalized American since birth?
Cut the birther crap, BW. Jim Robinson’s top candidate is Ted Cruz. You mock Cruz, you mock the founder of this website.
I know it’s an inconvenient truth for you. I’m sure you would love it if Cruz had a US bc and Trump had a Canadian one. Why, I bet we would not hear one single complaint from you guys. Do you think the dems will cut the bc crap? You cut the birther crap!
I knew this was inevitable.
probably because that website is so overloaded with massive ad-crap that it instantly crashes ordinary browsers and freezes browsers that have every ad-blocker known to mankind.
I concur wholeheartedly - I never posted there, but there are two sites I will not open because of the amount of crap they load - blaze and breitbart.
To make matters worse, Beck has lost his mind. I don’t see how any person could listen to his radio show - it’s awful.
When did Ted Cruz become a US citizen?
Cruz has yet to enlighten us with the document.
The Golden Plates!
So you assume that he is an illegal immigrant? You really don’t think he’s an American citizen, and never has been?
Now that’s funny ...
numbers 2, 3, and 4 are all for open borders ... won’t work
LOL .. so true
Yeah, I have noticed. Beck used to be funny himself — such as his famous work of art, Obama Pee-pee.
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