See bottom for update...
The big news for those who follow politics at all is that Glenn Beck is leaving his regular 5pm EST show on Fox News. With that comes all sorts of speculation about WHY. Most say that he has been forced out because he is so radical and that his ratings were dropping and losing sponsors but we have to remember the source. You can watch this video to get a glimpse of those against him.
For those of you who believe stations like MSNBC, CNN, etc... are non-partisan then you are living in a dreamland and you might as well stop reading because you are never going to believe
the rest anyway (I am not saying that Fox News is not at all partisan because it is). For those of you who are willing to listen to both sides and look into facts rather than simply take the view of one side, below is Glenn's announcement regarding his departure.
Will we ever know the truth regarding this departure? I don't believe we will. I suppose we just have to wait and see how it unfolds. What we can do though is look at the facts. I will try to take them in order and provide evidence to back it although I'm by no means a journalist and don't have time to get piece of evidence after piece of evidence.
Glenn's on camera antics
The report indicates that "he barked, he cried, he ranted". This is true, all true and we could post video after video of him doing this. What is wrong with that? Looking at Glenn's company Mercury Arts, the company's slogan is "the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment". You may not enjoy that kind of entertainment but apparently many do. On top of that if you were to take the full context of what he was saying they are simply dramatizations for the point he was making.
There is more to it then just randomly barking... He is responding and playing off of Obama's comments and the facts that he goes off on are all things that can be backed up as well.
Well you may not agree with his opposing views, and you may not be amused when he tries to entertain, but many can say the same thing about Chris Matthews, Rachel Madow, Ed Schultz, John Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Do you think you could create the same ridiculous clip real of them if you took a scalpel to it?
Falling Ratings / Fleeing Advertisers
Just taking a quick look at the falling ratings issue... Falling or rising is pretty irrelevant in my book because TV ratings are cyclical. I don't know when they are highest and I also don't know when they are lowest. What I can easily do though is look at a given day (Thursday, March 31st in this case) and compare Glenn's ratings to others in the time slot:
Glenn Beck Show (Fox News) - 3,577,000
Situation Room (CNN) - 1,021,000
Hardball with C. Matthews (MSNBC) - 919,000
Fast Money (CNBC) - 355,000
Showbiz Tonight (HLN) - 281,000
He has ratings that are 38% more than the competition COMBINED. Ok, so the next argument would be "Sure that's true but everyone knows Fox News has the most viewers and what is important is how you do relative to the other shows on the station".
The O'Reilly Factor (8pm EST) - 5,477,000
Hannity (9pm EST) - 3,728,000
Glenn Beck Show (5pm EST) - 3,577,000
Special Report w/Bret Baier (6pm EST) - 3,511,000
Fox Report w/S. Smith (7pm EST) - 3,160,000
On the Record w/Greta (10pm EST) - 2,894,000
The O'Reilly Factor (11pm EST) - 2,796,000
He is the 3rd highest ratings on Fox News. Maybe the next question would be "Well maybe the 5pm EST slot has really high ratings overall across the networks".
8pm EST - 8,882,000
9pm EST - 7,546,000
10pm EST - 6,637,000
6pm EST - 6,342,000
5pm EST - 6,153,000
7pm EST - 6,081,000
11pm EST - 5,351,000
So in summary, Glenn has by far the top rated 5pm EST show, has the 3rd highest rated show on the highest rated network, and is in the 3rd worst slot. This decision to separate is clearly not about ratings. What more could Fox be looking for if that was the case? Click here for the study
Well maybe its advertising. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to pull together much evidence on this simply because they don't have to release any of that information. I can however tell you that his company made $32 million dollars last year and you can't exactly do that without advertising. Read more here
Conspiracy Theories
This is the real meat of it and where, if you made it this far, you will likely just say "oh Jay's just a crazy conspiracy theorist too". Many people would argue that this could have caused Fox News to want to get rid of Glenn. I would beg to differ but can understand where they are coming from. You see the things that he outlines are not fun prospects and are kind of a downer. I do believe many of them, as outlandish as they seem, because all of the facts line up. Did you ever notice that no one questions his facts? The argument is "oh he's just crazy!" Wow, that is a good one!
So, while I would love to be able to prove these out in this blog I can't because I do have a job and school work to do... When I have heard these theories I have done basic fact checking and it's amazing what it uncovers. It's amazing how you can connect the dots just like he does (well his research team does). Instead of doing that, here is just one for you to play with and try to prove wrong:
I think it's funny that since the airing of this George Soros has significantly reduced his share of Petrobra. Hmmm... Might be something to look into because Obama is still giving $2 Billion to Brazil. I'm sure there is more to this than what meets the eye but that is a whole other subject. Sorry for thinking out loud!
Conclusion
Was this Fox News firing Glenn? Was it Glenn leaving Fox? We will never know for sure. I do however find it interesting that Fox is continuing a relationship with Glenn but not on a nightly basis but rather simply for specials. It is my personal feeling that Glenn has something bigger planned and has chosen to leave the nightly show arena and pick up a larger, more significant role. Time will tell but for the reasons above I do not agree with the final quote of the clip "It sounds like Ailes is mostly just happy that Beck is gone". If they didn't like what he was doing they would have simply ended the relationship altogether.
Updated April 13, 2011
Does this sound like a guy who was run out of Fox? This is clearer a case of someone who is moving on to a new post by choice.
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