Glenn Beck's Ratings Collapse

The Market Insider ^ | 4-29-2010 | Gillian Reagan

[blam]

Glenn Beck's Ratings Collapse

Gillian Reagan
Apr. 29, 2010, 4:15 PM

Is Glenn losing his edge? Maybe not.

Fox News' Glenn Beck might be a one-man $32 million media empire (books, radio shows, tours and more!) but what's going on with his marquee Fox News show?

The Los Angeles Times' Joe Flint reports that News Corp.-owned Fox News cable news ratings are still high above the competition. But Glenn Beck's total number of viewers are down by almost 30%, from 2.9 million in January to 2.1 million in April.

Glenn might not be the rising ratings juggernaut month to month, like he has always been. But he's still a powerhouse in the 5 p.m. timeslot. As Joe writes, "the decline in his audience has hardly made a dent on the lead he enjoys for his 5 p.m. festival of emotions. His rivals should hold off a little on popping the Champagne."

[snip]

Here's how the other cable news personalities are doing, year over year, in April:

April 09- April 2010 in the 25-54 demo:

* Fox News' Bill O’Reilly– down 3%

* MSNCB's Rachel Maddow – down 8%

* Fox News' Greta Van Sustren – down 13%

* Fox News' Sean Hannity – down 17%

* MSNBC's Chris Matthews – down 23%

* MSNBC's Headline News – down 26%

* MSNBC's Keith Olbermann – down 28%

* CNN's Wolf Blitzer – down 37%

* CNN's Campbell Brown – down 39%

* CNN's Anderson Cooper – down 41%

* CNN's Larry King – down 46%

[snip]

[combat_boots]

He’s been in suits, ties & oxfords all week. Maybe he’s read FR or recognizes that he’s in the bluest water navy there is now. Anyway, it’s not just ‘fun’ anymore.

[Cinnamontea]

Beck’s show is too much one talking head doing a lot of lecturing. He needs to find a better way to communicate what his lectures are trying to get across.

I like Beck's lectures. He manages to convey a heck of a lot of information clearly, and he often injects these little moments of slightly twisted humor (which I also enjoy).

I lost some respect for Beck after his radio interview with Peter Boyles (in which he disclosed he knew nothing about the "birther" issue) and his subsequent nastiness about it the next day on his show -- it was so at odds with his proclamation that we must "question with boldness" -- but I still watch him when I can and I appreciate that he comes up with info almost no other conservative does.

I agree with you about Shep Smith. One of the mysteries of the universe, right up there with who shot Kennedy, is why Fox News keeps Smith. And if they must keep him for some bizarre reason, why can't they switch his and Beck's time slot? No one can have truly good ratings in the long haul with a 5 p.m. ET show time.

[Cinnamontea]

Maybe it's just me, but I like jeans and tennis shoes on a man. I never cared for the dressed-up look.

[xzins]

I agree about Beck and the birther issue. You’re nice saying that you lost respect. Personally, I’m sure he flat out lied. There’s no way any barely awake purveyor of what’s happening in American news would have missed the birther story.

And Beck and his crew are ravenous consumers of info from the American news scene.

Summary: He lied about not knowing about it.

Was that better than saying, “If I try to deal with this, they will brand me and ruin this new start-up show.”? I doubt it. He could have simply said, “I’ll deal with this one down the road when I’m better prepared and the story is a bit more clear.”

Well, it’s clear. Obama has hidden a lot. Simply do the birther stuff as one of the pieces of evidence that Obama is not very forthcoming about anything having to do with his past.

[Cicero]

I agree. No one is asking the conservative talking heads to ENDORSE the birther story, or to say whether or no they think Obama is qualified to be President, but the least they could do is report on it.

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

I’m also sick of the chalk board analysis. They’ve become very boring & monotonous.

I like the red phone idea.

[xzins]

Part of the problem is that Beck has been doing a herculean job running a radio show prep and an evening commentary prep. I’m actually amazed at his ability to assimilate and present his material, however, it just can’t go on.

Like you say, a chalk board lecture is a good way to communicate some ideas. But it’s not the best way to present each and every idea.

[tanknetter]

spring is here...

That's a very good point. They're comparing ratings from January to now, rather than comparing now from the same time last year.

January, iirc, was the time when a good chunk of the US East Coast was shut down due to Snowmageddon. People stuck at home, LOTS of opportunities to watch cable television and Beck does have a pretty compelling personality. PLUS that was the time that he was getting all sorts of press, so you'd have to add in curious/intrigued viewers who he wasn't able to hold on to.

Valid comparisons would be January 09/January 10, and then April 09/April 10. Not just for Beck's show, but for all viewership.

[Kent C]

Enjoyed your post.

[Kent C]

> “I think people feel they need a break from the intensity of everything that’s going on.”

>> Not to be a jerk, but...
>> That is why we lose in the battles that were fought and those coming at us.

Not to be sappy but that’s why Valley Forge wasn’t lost. And our opponents never give up and never take a break.

[freemike]

Rush is in a league of his own. Beck can be so depressing. You have to be able to motivate and inspire a little. The line for me was when he was criticizing Brown for making that joke about his daughters in the night he won election. It’s like, can’t you just celebrate for one night? Just one freaking night? A victory is a victory.

[NellieMae]

Me too! Think I’ll listen to some old rock and roll for a while and take a break!

[Kent C]

Watched tonight’s “Samuel Adams” show on dvr. Both sides take out of context passages to show the founders were either evangelical Christians or Deists and/or Atheists. And Beck’s show tonight was no exception. First, I have no doubt that Sam Adams was in fact on of the most Christian of our founders.

However, having read the complete correspondence between Jefferson and the Adams (John and Abagail) and currently reading a three volume set of the complete correspondence between Jefferson and Madison, I happen to know that John Adams, Jefferson and Madison all thought upon the inclusion of religion in the Massachusetts Constitution (as well as Madison’s and Jefferson’ own state Constitutions inclusion of religion in Virginia) was abhorrent to the idea of freedom of conscience/thought.

Each of them drafted amendments to eliminate those clauses in their respective state constitutions - Madison and Jefferson were finally successful and it was John Adams (although an author of the original Massachusetts Constitution) that submitted a ‘religious freedom’ amendment in Massachusetts’s Constitutional Convention of 1820 along these lines:

“Mr BOSTLSTON of Princeton at the suggestion of Mr ADAMS of Quincy who was absent offered a resolution proposing to alter the Constitution so that instead of every denomination of Christians toe it should read “all men of all religions demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the Commonwealth shall be equally under the protection of the law” Referred to the committee of the whole on the Declaration of Rights” from “Journal of debates and proceedings in the Convention of delegates”

The problem was in Mass. was that the Congregationalists held a virtual monopoly within the state. They did so by giving money to the Universities and hence had professors from their religions. They held great sway and those that were against the amendment argued along the lines that the money to the universaries might dry up and it was suggested that any denomination willing to make contributions to the Universities would be treated equally. The general feeling at the time among the other denominations was that such equal treatment with the already ‘established religion’ was an empty gesture.

This amendment failed in 1820 but in 1833 a similar amendment was adopted to restore true religious freedom to Massachusetts.

I don’t mind Glenn teaching history but he should teach the whole story, not just the parts that happen to agree with his view. The fact that in the letters between TJ and JA that they often lamented the fact that their state constitutions held what they considered to be anti-freedom of religion clauses, should be also a part of his ‘lesson’. And that isn’t to say that either Adams or Jefferson were deist or atheists - they weren’t - only that the concept of ‘religious freedom’ as it’s embodied in the writings of mainly Jefferson and Madison and in the first amendment is a different concept that was held by Samuel Adams. And it was TJ’s and JM’s that won out in the US Constitution.

[KarenMarie]

mrkd

[TheThinker]

one could say that if there was one thing that was different in the founding of our gov’t than all others was that, for the first time, the natural rights of individuals were held higher than those of the church or the state.

Too many don't seem to realize that those precious natural individual rights must be guarded vigilantly.

The political class is always trying to separate them from the public with trinkets like "hope" as if the individual American and his abilities isn't all the hope he'll ever need.

Once we lose faith in ourselves to survive and fulfill our dreams, that's when one starts giving up rights in return for slavery in the form of government-structured welfare programs.

[riri]

That's is what make what they are doing so sinister. Look at the EU. The average European doesn't even know the framework and the power that unelected officials have on their lives. They keep the appearances of the old government in place complete with elections but the representatives and countrymen themselves have less and less power. Many Europeans do not believe this. I have actually had arguments with Brits who tell me the EU has no real power.

[TheThinker]

Many Europeans do not believe this. I have actually had arguments with Brits who tell me the EU has no real power.

The power of modern mass media and its use in the classroom and greater society to indoctrinate is very, very strong.

It removes fear of losing one's rights, builds shame in one's ethnic and national identity, and steeps one in leftist ideology.

[Kent C]

> “Once we lose faith in ourselves to survive and fulfill our dreams, that’s when one starts giving up rights in return for slavery in the form of government-structured welfare programs.”

You’re right. It is a laziness of ‘spirit’ that traps us. Eternal vigilance isn’t easy to practice when things seem to be ok. We’ll learn that soon enough.

[TheThinker]

You know I have a deeply liberal friend (at least he's a genuinely liberal in that he comes to his conclusions out of outrage - it's just that he just can't seem to grasp capitalism and religious freedom at all) who looked at me tonight and told me he supported the Tea Partiers.

My jaw almost hit the floor. He admitted he's scared for his livelihood and rights. Public opinion has to be terrible for this man to be worried with his party possessing so much power.

[Kent C]

> You know I have a deeply liberal friend (at least he’s a genuinely liberal in that he comes to his conclusions out of outrage - it’s just that he just can’t seem to grasp capitalism and religious freedom at all) who looked at me tonight and told me he supported the Tea Partiers.

> My jaw almost hit the floor. He admitted he’s scared for his livelihood and rights. Public opinion has to be terrible for this man to be worried with his party possessing so much power.

I don’t have any ‘deeply liberal’ “friends”. :-) I don’t trust them in a ‘Zhivago-type’ scenario. But I have some acquaintances who don’t think that today’s administration is the same Democrat party with which they’ve been associated for decades. And some are watching Beck now or I should say _were_ watching him. Many are worried about their IRA’s and 401k’s (speaking union folk here).

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/demand-congress-pass-keep-your-hands-my-401k-act-2010

Many did see the lady, Teresa Ghilarducci, in the congressional hearing a while back, bring up the proposal to basically confiscate them. The code is ‘lifetime income’ so that there would be no real ‘annuity’ - you get paid until you die, but everything else is theirs. That scared some and the fact that the followup comments by Obama and Geithner didn’t help much. lol. Stuff like that, which affects them directly and is not hidden, tends to wake someone up. Just a note on that - a good red flag that they will attempt something like that would be to raise the penalty for early withdrawal or impose a penalty for lump sum distributions. An ‘Alinsky type’ ploy applied to retirements - isolate it, freeze it, then confiscate it. lol.

But yeah, some are waking up. Some are still seeing stars though.