"CNN's Rodeo Clown" - Glenn Beck

Eric Boehlert:

The bad news last week was that Glenn Beck, the right-wing radio talker and self-described "rodeo clown" who broadcasts nightly on CNN Headline News, hosted a world-is-flat special about the "myths" surrounding global warming. In it, Beck rounded up the usual ban of discredited, oil industry-friendly "experts" who announced that the looming atmospheric crisis is overblown, and that far from being a consensus, serious scientists still disagree on the matter.

The good news was that Beck's special, "Exposed: Climate of Fear," was a commercial flop, finishing dead last in total viewers among CNN, Headline News, Fox News, and MSNBC programs that night. The weak showing simply highlighted Beck's recent, albeit little-discussed, ratings woes. Just months after being hyped as the fastest-growing prime-time program in cable news, Glenn Beck has become arguably the most stagnant prime-time program in cable news.

For CNN, the repercussions of the backslide are immense and go far beyond the advertising dollars and cents involved.

That's because whereas CNN last year traded away its good name in exchange for debuting Beck's factually challenged and hateful brand of broadcasting, at least CNN execs were getting a ratings boost out of the Faustian bargain. Today, Beck's still making a mockery out of CNN's reputation on a daily basis, as he disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will. But in return, CNN's now stuck with a Beck program that's trapped in neutral and shows signs of sliding into reverse.

Well played, CNN.

. . . more

They deserve each other.

He's a fucking clown.

but hey, in the Akron, Ohio area ... a low-wattage station playing lefty positions was gaining audience (but not moving up in the ratings) after two years with almost no promotion was replaced by "sports talk" ... which is extremely under-represented in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area :eyes::sarcasm:

I used to love being able to pop it on for a quick rundown of headlines or sports scores. Now its Faux Jr. But then with all the downsizing and greed, its easier to put on an asshat like Beck or Nancy Grace...or fill hours with mindless celebrity crap cause news is a "downer" and boring. It doesn't sizzle....and to hell with news when you think you can get higher ratings appealing to people's hatred and biases.

I know that commentary is cheaper to produce, and you don't have to maintain all those offices and personnel in all those remote locations, but it's boring! It's not informative, and it's boring! Just so predictable and so boring!

I guess Headline News is really a misnomer these days. It should be called "More Commentary" or "Pundits on Parade" or "You Too Can Be a Stupid Commentator".

than from watching the show.

I expect most TV's turned to CNN when Beck comes on are those playing in empty rooms. If people were actually in the room they would be reaching for the remote.

until about a month ago...I tuned in and his guest was Dog the Bounty Hunter (and his Bountiful wife), and Beck was gushing about how "these people" (Dog and his wife) were the "real deal" and "the genuine article" because he could just "see it in their eyes". Gag. I turned the channel and haven't tuned into CNN since.

CNN will have to get rid of a lot more than Beck for it becomes worth watching.

I punch numbers on my remote rather using than the up and down channel button, because there are so many channels that I don't want to pollute my home with for the fraction of a second.

Timers work well also to just go straight to shows or movies and preset times.

When nothing is on I use the music channels for background noise.

He had 53k of 25-54 demo, that's less than a live in my suburb....

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork4.html

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

huh
To me it just looked like another lost opportunity to begin to redeem itself. CNN hasn't been a News outfit since Ted T. got out.

So---we couldn't "trust" Dan Rather to tell us the whole truth.
We read propaganda in the vaunted NYT.

Now, THE world-wide source of news is compromised.

There has always been method to their madness.