Beck

Please don’t down ding the messenger.

August 29, 2009
The Beck Boycott’s unintended consequences
Ethel C. Fenig
The organized boycott of Glenn Beck and his program is proving the truth of two public relations fundamentals; “just about any publicity is good publicity” and “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.”

It seems the boycotters, who are giving Beck loads of free publicity, carefully spelling his name correctly while also conveniently including his network and the times his controversial show airs, have helped Beck. All for free! It turns out that although advertisers are continuing to pull ads from Beck’s program —and shifting them to other slots on the Fox network which airs it—the fallout publicity has increased his audience.

As Robert Seidman of TV by the Numbers reports

Though a little scandal might alienate advertisers, it’s pure ratings gold. Last night Glenn Beck had over 3 million viewers at 5pm, second only to O’Reilly for the night. But, Beck had more 25-54 viewers than O’Reilly (888K to 876K). (snip) Even though Beck airs before primetime, when there are fewer people watching TV, he had the most 25-54 viewers in the cable news world for the night.

In the meantime, the advertisers are missing an easy opportunity to reach the prime demographic, viewers ages 25-54, who are probably tweeting and facebooking how much they enjoy Beck’s additional comments now that the program isn’t cluttered by intrusive ads from Applebee’s to Vonage and more. Which of course draws even more viewers.

And Beck—and Fox—are giggling all the way to the bank. As are the viewers.