The Decline of Glenn Beck

Is Fox News getting tired of Beck’s paranoia?

MediaMarch 2011 • Views: 31,207

At the New York Times, David Carr says raving freakazoid Glenn Beck’s days at Fox News may be numbered.

A funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.

He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

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62 comments

Big Steve Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:42:01am

t they are looking at the end of his contract in December

Looks like the network gearing up for contract negotiations and just floating a trial balloon.

HappyWarrior Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:42:30am

I'll echo what you and other people have pointed out. Beck isn't the only problem plus, there are a lot of people who watch Beck and think "Man this guy is right on!." It's disturbing really because of the sheer nonsense Beck spreads. I for one will not miss him if he's gone. The guy is so full of himself that it's not even funny and the martyr complex would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

bluecheese Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:43:59am

i doubt it.

Fox News just wanna be cheep on his next contract.

Republicans loves them some glen beck. That aint gonna change anytime soon.

garhighway Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:45:45am

I don't think Beck is the problem, and regardless, he's still pulling good enough ratings that Fox will want to keep him.

To me, the larger problem is the way Fox rigorously slants everything it does: opinion, "news", you name it.

But I agree with Big Steve: this smells like contract posturing.

lawhawk Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:48:26am

re: #2 HappyWarrior

I imagine it's all about people tuning in to see what he'll say next. Those who hate him are tuning in to see what he'll say next, just as much as those who actually agree with what he's saying.

Much like Sheen - it's about watching a slow-motion train wreck in progress, and in Beck's case it's about the disjointed and conspiracy laden logic.

Gus Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:51:09am

I don't see Beck leaving Fox News either. At least not for ratings. He may slip up one day but with nearly 2 million viewers a day that's hard to beat. News Corpse won't throw that away.

philosophus invidius Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:53:31am

re: #5 lawhawk

I guess a train wreck only holds your interest for so long. Now Fox needs someone even crazier. Is Alex Jones available?

SpaceJesus Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:54:28am

They should replace him with Noam Chomsky. I'm not kidding. Fox ratings would go through the roof on the"WTF, I have to see this" factor alone.

BishopX Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:57:27am

The Republic primaries Start in February, We'll probably have a clear winner before April. If Beck leaves Fox in December that gives them 2-4 months to spin up a new show before that show backs the republican contender.

Gus Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:57:45am

re: #8 SpaceJesus

They should replace him with Noam Chomsky. I'm not kidding. Fox ratings would go through the roof on the"WTF, I have to see this" factor alone.

Charlie Sheen

bluecheese Mon, Mar 7, 2011 10:58:22am

In other news:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll in July found that 71% of Americans believed Obama definitely or probably was born in the United States, while 27% said he definitely or probably was not. The sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

lolz at the 27 percent.

HappyWarrior Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:01:27am

The funniest by far are the people who believe Obama is the anti-christ.

Mostly sane, most of the time. Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:02:57am

re: #11 bluecheese

In other news:

lolz at the 27 percent.

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

Holidays are Family Fun Time Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:04:44am

Hey all, how is the day going?

Holidays are Family Fun Time Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:05:05am

posting is still taking a while on my end.

Prononymous, rogue demon hunter Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:06:39am

Yay, I am finally done. Setting up 12 jars and 4 reactors is harder work than it sounds.

Now that I have ensured the survival of my microbe army for another week, I must rest as befits a semi-benevolent overlord such as myself.

Time to unwind...

iossarian Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:07:01am

re: #13 EmmmieG

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

Apart from anything else, Hawaii's rainbow helicopters would be a lot easier to spot than the black kind.

Henchman Ghazi-808 Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:08:21am

re: #13 EmmmieG

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

Doncha know about Da Braddah Joooos?

Holidays are Family Fun Time Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:08:31am

You know those detached States, just can't trust 'em.

Obama, then Palin . . . .

/////

Decatur Deb Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:08:50am

re: #11 bluecheese

In other news:

lolz at the 27 percent.

That seems to be the magic number for craziness. Note Pres. GW Bush's final approval ratings. A society can actually function with about 25% bizzaros, if the sane majority can pull their act together.

Holidays are Family Fun Time Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:10:17am

re: #20 Decatur Deb

That seems to be the magic number for craziness. Note Pres. GW Bush's final approval ratings. A society can actually function with about 25% bizzaros, if the sane majority can pull their act together.

only 1/4 insane or dysfunctional more than functional?

WE can't afford that can we?

mikefromArlington Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:10:33am

I'm guessing crazy doesn't go well in the general election. When only congressional districts are at play though crazy is what gets the primary voters fired up.

Fox is an arm of the RNC. It's all politics.

SanFranciscoZionist Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:10:47am

re: #15 ggt

posting is still taking a while on my end.

Me too.

Holidays are Family Fun Time Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:13:57am

I'm going to run a full scan on my system

bb when it's done.

Charles Johnson Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:14:01am

I know things are still slow, folks. There's apparently some kind of clog in the lines between our web server and our DB server, possibly a bad router. Nothing I can fix on my end, unfortunately.

Decatur Deb Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:15:37am

re: #21 ggt

only 1/4 insane or dysfunctional more than functional?

WE can't afford that can we?

Be an optimist. We don't have a good grasp on the number of people in other times and other cultures who would scale as 'batshit'. I suspect we would want to medicate just about everyone in Medieval Europe or the mountains of Papua.

SanFranciscoZionist Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:17:56am

re: #13 EmmmieG

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

A fake birth certificate, retroactive fake birth announcements in the Honolulu papers, and then they got the Republican governor of Hawaii to repeatedly stand up in a public and claim that she'd seen the originals, and all was well.

The Obama administration must have Lingle's aged mother in a black ops facility or something.

Prononymous, rogue demon hunter Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:18:02am

I think I'll ~~go to sleep~~ take a siesta now. Good ~~night~~ afternoon folks.

lawhawk Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:20:14am

re: #13 EmmmieG

Well, another birther suit got canned by the Supremes today.

The justices Monday turned aside without comment a request for a rehearing of various claims, after dismissing the original appeal in late January.
The long-shot petition by Gregory Hollister had called on Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to withdraw from considering the constitutional claims, contending a conflict of interest by the president's two high court appointees.

Lower federal claims had dismissed Hollister's claims.

The justices had also dismissed earlier, unrelated lawsuits from individuals questioning Obama's citizenship. State birth certificate records show he was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother is a native of Kansas; his father was born in Kenya.

Mostly sane, most of the time. Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:21:32am

re: #27 SanFranciscoZionist

A fake birth certificate, retroactive fake birth announcements in the Honolulu papers, and then they got the Republican governor of Hawaii to repeatedly stand up in a public and claim that she'd seen the originals, and all was well.

The Obama administration must have Lingle's aged mother in a black ops facility or something.

//

Don't forget they had to go back to hundreds of libraries around the US and substitute old microfilm records to be sure the newspaper records match.

tomg51spence Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:23:01am

I did not see money mentioned in the article.
Seems advertising value and cost of the host matter a lot,
and especially any shift in the ratio of value to cost.

Killgore Trout Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:24:10am

I wouldn't get too excited about this, Beck is floundering a bit but he's still bringing in big numbers. They will probably renew his contract. As long as the wingnuts tune in Fox will keep him around. If Fox was really worried about crazies they'd fire their on air 9-11 truthers.

BARACK THE VOTE Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:25:30am

re: #32 Killgore Trout

I wouldn't get too excited about this, Beck is floundering a bit but he's still bringing in big numbers. They will probably renew his contract. As long as the wingnuts tune in Fox will keep him around. If Fox was really worried about crazies they'd fire their on air 9-11 truthers.

This, completely. Crazy is what butters their bread.

engineer cat Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:28:01am

re: #11 bluecheese

In other news:

lolz at the 27 percent.

it seems that it's always about 27% of americans who give the most brain dead answer to all political poll questions... hmmmmm....

S'latch Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:28:09am

Fox and Glenn Beck's other alternative is to spread the appeal to a broader demographic of freakazoids and include a wider variety of nut sandwiches.

Feline Fearless Leader Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:28:47am

FOX dump Beck going into a Presidential election year... riiiiiiight.

engineer cat Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:29:16am

Beck

somewhere, fox accountants are looking at the projected ad revenues from beck's air time vs what they think they can get with something else

Decatur Deb Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:30:56am

re: #34 engineer dog

it seems that it's always about 27% of americans who give the most brain dead answer to all political poll questions... hmmm...

Yup--and it has LW and RW proportions, which could shift back and forth through time.

Henchman 25 Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:32:45am

When Beck's show ends, via contract expiration or otherwise, there is no doubt in my mind that he will claim that it's a New World Order conspiracy attempt to silence him on his final episode.

Decatur Deb Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:34:46am

re: #39 SteelPH

When Beck's show ends, via contract expiration or otherwise, there is no doubt in my mind that he will claim that it's a New World Order conspiracy attempt to silence him on his final episode.

Worse yet, he manages to kill himself by intent or accident. Then he "was silenced".

justaminute Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:35:27am

Glen Beck leaving? Well, there goes my fantasy of Fox hosting a debate with all the Republican candidates with Glenn on the panel asking questions.

theheat Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:42:15am

Beck won't go anywhere, especially with an election coming up. I think this is misinformation so "everyone else" that isn't a fan gets their hopes up. Fox is just as corporate whorish as any other successful corporation and they aren't about to sacrifice their cash cow, now matter how fucking crazy he is.

The only upside to ditching Beck would be more quality Fox programming of racists, conspiracy theorists, and teabaggers. But they won't get the ratings, so it defaults to The King of Crazy.

We're stuck with Beck and all the irreparable damage he does. He's a filthy dishonest asshole. And he's stinking rich.

iossarian Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:45:10am

re: #25 Charles

I know things are still slow, folks. There's apparently some kind of clog in the lines between our web server and our DB server, possibly a bad router. Nothing I can fix on my end, unfortunately.

This isn't run from two old PIIs in a pole barn somewhere?

/would like to know what the west coast equivalent of a pole barn is

jamesfirecat Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:47:43am

re: #40 Decatur Deb

Worse yet, he manages to kill himself by intent or accident.

And thus the Howard Beale comparison will come to its inevitable conclusion....

Henchman Ghazi-808 Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:50:21am

re: #33 iceweasel

This, completely. Crazy is what butters their bread.

Yes, but I think we're at Peak Crazy right now. Black man becoming prez during the worst economy since the Depression, crazy went, well, crazy.

I think he's peaked, and will drop. Maybe time slot moving. He'll go to radio or late night TV on Fox.

I think if the economy continues to improve and the GOP continues the embrace of crazy/dominionism Beck will move to AM radio or late night TV, or an off time slot. He did peak at 5m viewers, now down to 2m. That's a mighty fall.

tomg51spence Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:53:03am

re: #36 oaktree

FOX dump Beck going into a Presidential election year... riiight.

Concur.
It would like cancelling Saturday Night Live in an election year.
Does SNL have a Glenn Beck?

Henchman Ghazi-808 Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:55:18am

re: #46 tomg51spence

Concur.
It would like cancelling Saturday Night Live in an election year.
Does SNL have a Glenn Beck?

I'd rather cancel Beck. At least SNL embraces and doesn't hide the fact that is' satire, and they are funny.

Beck is serious which makes him not funny at all.

iossarian Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:57:25am

re: #46 tomg51spence

Concur.
It would like cancelling Saturday Night Live in an election year.
Does SNL have a Glenn Beck?

Chris Farley's dead, you insensitive clod!

"In a van... down by the RIVER!"

Fozzie Bear Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:58:09am

I don't think that Fox will drop Beck. He might shift into another time slot, or get a less lucrative contract, but there is no way in hell they are dropping him. The people at the top of Fox are every bit as nuts as Beck, and then some. It's not like Beck is "a" rotten apple. The whole barrel is rotten.

tomg51spence Mon, Mar 7, 2011 11:59:38am

re: #47 BigPapa

All true.
I haven't seen SNL since 2008.
But I think a parody skit of Glen could be well worth watching in 2012.

Feline Fearless Leader Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:03:05pm

MSNBC Video

Emperor penguin colony disappears. AGW?

Or, is it Ovechkin and those sneaky Russian hockey players?
/

SanFranciscoZionist Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:07:36pm

re: #41 justaminute

Glen Beck leaving? Well, there goes my fantasy of Fox hosting a debate with all the Republican candidates with Glenn on the panel asking questions.

That would be awesomely hilarious.

Gus Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:16:44pm

Connection any better?

Anywho. Called Denver General and I'm still on the waiting list. Was supposed to be for two months and I signed up around mid January. Now she said it might be another two months. Meanwhile she said I could go back to the urgent care clinic and "see what they can do" for me. Hopefully my hernia won't strangulate my intestines and this lump I have will stop growing.

Finest healthcare system in the world! God bless America.

Gus Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:21:48pm

OK Back to playing around with work stuff. Later.

SanFranciscoZionist Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:36:27pm

re: #46 tomg51spence

Concur.
It would like cancelling Saturday Night Live in an election year.
Does SNL have a Glenn Beck?

Dunno, I don't watch them regularly these days. Jon Stewart does a spot-on impersonation, but he's only done it once or twice.

SanFranciscoZionist Mon, Mar 7, 2011 12:47:43pm

re: #53 Gus 802

Connection any better?

Anywho. Called Denver General and I'm still on the waiting list. Was supposed to be for two months and I signed up around mid January. Now she said it might be another two months. Meanwhile she said I could go back to the urgent care clinic and "see what they can do" for me. Hopefully my hernia won't strangulate my intestines and this lump I have will stop growing.

Finest healthcare system in the world! God bless America.

Could be worse. You could be in Canada, where you'd have to wait for months and months to be seen.

///

Wozza Matter? Mon, Mar 7, 2011 1:46:20pm

re: #53 Gus 802

Connection any better?

Anywho. Called Denver General and I'm still on the waiting list. Was supposed to be for two months and I signed up around mid January. Now she said it might be another two months. Meanwhile she said I could go back to the urgent care clinic and "see what they can do" for me. Hopefully my hernia won't strangulate my intestines and this lump I have will stop growing.

Finest healthcare system in the world! God bless America.

It's all those canadians and foreigners coming over and clogging up the system to get their healthcare............

/Hannity.

Turkey Jihad Mon, Mar 7, 2011 2:42:30pm

As long as Faux tolerates this nonsense in the video below, Beck is sane compared to it.

Youtube Video

mr.fusion Mon, Mar 7, 2011 3:08:34pm

re: #13 EmmmieG

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

Forget about that.....

Think about the conversation the puppet masters must've had......

George Soros: "Hey, there's this baby that was just born in Africa.....his name is Barack Obama and I can already tell he's going to be a Marxist with the gift of rhetoric."

Sean Penn: "Perfect.....call the Hawaii newspapers and get his birth announcement printed in the paper. No one will be the wiser!"

mr.fusion Mon, Mar 7, 2011 3:09:41pm

Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally

Just a quick fact check:

An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.

Link

Jaerik Mon, Mar 7, 2011 9:51:26pm

re: #13 EmmmieG

I'm just flabbergasted at the number of Americans who honestly believe that the Hawaiian state government could and would create a fake birth certificate and then manage to keep the conspiracy quiet.

The second part would be the hard part.

I usually point out that many people who rant the most passionately about the government being too incompetent to perform even basic tasks, like to then claim that same government is hyper-competent when it comes to orchestrating world-wide conspiracies and keeping them secret.

changomo Tue, Mar 8, 2011 9:57:35am

Good news indeed....

Spy Mode Auto

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