Free Republic

Spotify has never revealed how many listeners Joe Rogan has on his massively popular podcast – until now. "The Joe Rogan Experience" has a gigantic audience – triple the size of the next most-listened-to podcast on the streaming platform. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rogan had signed a new multiyear deal with Spotify worth an estimated $250 million. By re-signing with the streaming behemoth, Rogan reportedly received an upfront minimum guarantee and revenue-sharing based on sales of advertisements. The contract is a three-year deal, according to the New York Daily News. ... in the press release regarding...

ROME — Pope Francis received Italian American director Martin Scorsese for a private meeting in the Vatican on Wednesday. Scorsese, who directed the controversial 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ and is currently working on a movie of the life of Jesus, has said that when he thinks of Pope Francis, he thinks of “compassion.” n Wednesday’s meeting, the 81-year-old director presented Pope Francis with a book chronicling the making of his Oscar-nominated film Killers of the Flower Moon. Papal confidant Father Antonio Spadaro, a harsh critic of American Christians, gushed effusively over the meeting, insisting that it formed...

Climate activists angered opera fans at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, by standing up and screaming during an opening night performance of Tannhäuser, Thursday. Radical climate group Extinction Rebellion, NYC, took credit for the protest on social media, and shared videos of the disruptions. Halfway through the second act of the performance, several protesters stood up and demanded an end to fossil fuels. One man scolded the audience to "wake up" to the "climate emergency," before unfolding a black banner that said, "No opera on a dead planet." "Wake up! The stream is polluted! The stream is tainted!...

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is once again pressuring the Republican National Committee to change their debate format after audience declines across the previous three showdowns. “This January GOP debate should be held on X, not on cable TV, moderated by Tucker [Carlson], who might just ask questions that primary voters actually care about,” Ramaswamy said in a statement to The Post on Friday. “They say they want to reach younger voters and new audiences? Well that’s how you do it,” the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur added. The first Republican primary debate, hosted by Fox News Channel and held on Aug. 23...

Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that the Fox News audience was “a giant monster that you have to feed every night” while discussing Arizona man Ray Epps suing the network. Carville said, “If you remember right after January 6th, they needed an alternative story, and said it was really Antifa. But there’s no such thing at Antifa, so you can’t defame it. There is no organization, there’s no Antifa headquarters, there’s no Antifa board. So if they would have just stuck with Antifa, they would have probably been okay. But then they single Mr. Epps...

Former White House press secretary and MSNBC host Jen Psaki said Monday on CBS’s “The Late Show” that Fox News host Tucker Carlson treats his audience “like they are stupid.” Colbert said, “Let’s talk about the people who clearly had a cozy relationship with power, and that’s Fox News.” Psaki said, “I heard there are some developments.” Colbert said, “We are learning more about what is going on behind the scenes there. It’s not surprising, but it is unsettling to hear about.” Psaki said, “It’s a little bit more than unsettling, wouldn’t you say? I’ve watched you — I know...

When Jon Stewart left the Daily Show in 2015, he averaged 1.3 million viewers per night. After seven years of humiliating failure, Stewart’s hand-picked replacement, some guy named Trevor Noah, is slinking off with an average viewership as of last week of 363,000 viewers. During his failed reign, I made something of a cottage industry ridiculing Stewart’s pathetic ratings. The corporate media bent over backward to juice the far-left and smugly dishonest Stewart into a national phenomenon when the truth was that less than one percent of Americans tuned in. Jon Stewart was a “phenomenon” in CNN’s eyes only, a...

President Biden is set to participate in a CNN town hall in Baltimore this week where he will face questions from an “invitation-only audience” — as his administration juggles uniting the Democratic Party, a worsening border crisis and supply-chain bottlenecks creating empty shelves and threatening the on-time arrival of holiday gifts. On Monday, CNN announced the 90-minute town hall, which will be moderated by Anderson Cooper and air at 8 p.m. ET Thursday on the network. The president, who has recently been traveling across the country touting his “Build Back Better” agenda, could face questions regarding a number of crises...

“CNN’s ‘The Lead with Jake Tapper’ has shed a staggering 75% of its audience since the liberal network experienced a January spike in viewers,” reports Fox News. Between May 31 and June 23, Tapper, a proven liar, and fabulist averaged only –LOL –708,000 viewers during his 4 p.m. ET hour. That’s down from 2.8 million in January.

Roughly 11.6 million viewers watched President Biden's address to Congress on Wednesday, according to initial data from Nielsen. The initial data include viewers from Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, Comcast Corp's NBC, ViacomCBS Inc's CBS, and Fox, but not viewers on cable news networks like Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Biden's speech drew in less than 75% of the viewership former President Donald Trump's speech congressional drew. In 2017, Trump saw 48 million viewers, followed by 46 million in 2018, 46.8 million in 2019,and 37.2 million in 2020.

NEW YORK, NY—A gleeful Joy Behar reported to the audience of The View the startling revelation that Adolf Hitler never voted for Trump, causing the crowd to cheer wildly. "This just in: it seems that Adolf Hitler never voted for Donald Trump!" Behar cried in ecstasy, causing the crowd to begin screaming in rapturous joy. "Shove that in your pipe and smoke it, bad orange man! Ha! You can't even get an evil Nazi dictator to fall for your shenanigans."

No Whoopi. No Meghan. Still a whole lotta drama. With Whoopi Goldberg and Meghan McCain off for Friday’s installment of “The View,” Joy Behar assumed the role of gabfest ringleader. The episode began innocuously enough with the gals cheerfully yakking about their Halloween costumes from the previous day. And then the mood quickly turned doom-and-gloom. Less than five minutes into the show, Behar dropped a bombshell. Scheduled to appear on the Nov. 7 episode — the 5,000th of the series, no less — will be none other than Donald Trump Jr. and his current squeeze, former Fox News pundit Kimberly...

SOUTHINGTON, CT — In alphabetical order, a majority of Democratic and one unaffiliated candidates for governor endorsed the idea of installing electronic tolls on Connecticut’s highways and received applause for it. The nine candidates participated in a forum Friday sponsored by the Connecticut Construction Industries Association. The same group sponsored a similar forum in December for the Republican gubernatorial candidates as well. None of the candidates who are still in the “exploratory” phase of their campaigns for governor were invited to either forum — only the declared candidates. The problem: Connecticut’s special transportation fund will start running a deficit in...

Dwayne Johnson just might be one of the most popular celebrities in America, and it isn’t just because of his acting. In a recent GQ story titled, “Dwayne Johnson for President”, writer Caity Weaver showed the side of Johnson that has earned him the widely-accepted title of “Nicest Guy in America.” Johnson has learned something that most of Hollywood would do well to copy: the value of listening before talking in politics. Unlike perennial left-leaning superstar singers Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, he isn’t standing on stage, leading rallies for politicians.  He also isn’t channeling vulgar overtures to convince Americans to...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has had a bad week in the media, but potentially a good week for the future. The transition from a free-flowing primary campaign to a more structured, bigger general election campaign is underway. The transition is a bit more turbulent than might be comfortable for those along for the ride. After announcing Cory Lewandowski's departure on Monday, the Trump campaign released a list of new hires on Tuesday, with promises of more to come. But in the end, campaigns are not about staffs, spouses or (adult) children, they are a reflection of the candidate....

Wow! He did it again. Last week Donald Trump attacked the stacked debate audience in New Hampshire.Tonight he did it again! Donald Trump attacked the audience again tonight in South Carolina saying they were Jeb Bush lobbyists.Ouch!Donald Trump: You know who that is? That’s Jeb’s special interests and lobbyists talking here! They didn’t like that.

Repeatedly throughout the debate, the audience cheered as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his protegéSen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) consistently and repeatedly made the case to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, while the audience oddly booed both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as they made eloquent cases against amnesty. “I don’t think it’s representative of the people of South Carolina,” Lewandowski added. “Those who don’t have the resources to give large sums of money to the RNC didn’t get a ticket here tonight and that’s a shame on the RNC.” Trump’s campaign was hardly the only one upset with...

An audience member who attended CNN’s Monday night town hall for Democratic presidential candidates appeared to unintentionally admit that CNN wrote questions beforehand for audience members to ask the candidates. The televised forum was hosted by Drake University and the Iowa Democratic Party and took place one week before Iowa voters head to the caucuses as the first state to help determine the primary. It was a chance for potential voters to ask the Democratic candidates questions to help determine their choice this Monday. One audience member named Brett Rosenberg began to ask a question to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton...

Pew Research came out with its latest seven-year study of religious trends in America. The data appears to show Christianity in decline, and given its numerous sensational headlines the liberal media couldn’t be happier with the results. For once, this Jesus Freak actually agrees with them. The Pew Research numbers showing Christianity in decline is good news—both for America and Christianity. Allow me to explain. We have become so obsessed with numbers in our culture – dollars, attendance, followers, likes, polls, etc. – that we have confused audience with influence. For example, pop stars Katy Perry and Justin Bieber currently...

Make no mistake, Fox News is still the ratings king. But the recent May numbers show that while all the cable channels had a decline in ratings (which is normal for May), Fox News was far from spared, with some of its lowest ratings in 12 years. While Fox dominates with the top 14 shows in overall viewers, the total day average for Fox News in the key advertising demographic of the 25- to 54-year-old category was 177,000 viewers, only the second time Fox has gone below a 200,000 average since 2001. Another key factor coming from May ratings is...