Glenn Beck to shut down show
By DAVID BAUDER April 6, 2011 2:30PM
Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM
NEW YORK — Glenn Beck later this year will end his Fox News Channel talk show, which has sunk in the ratings and has suffered from an advertiser boycott.
Fox and Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, said Wednesday they will stay in business creating other projects for Fox television and digital, starting with some documentaries Beck is preparing.
Beck was a quick burn on Fox News Channel. Almost immediately after joining the network in January 2009, he doubled the ratings at his afternoon time slot. Fans found his conservative populism entertaining, while Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert described Beck’s “crank up the crazy and rip off the knob” moments.
He was popular with Tea Party activists and drew thousands of people to the National Mall in Washington last August for a “restoring honor” rally.
Yet some of his statements got him in trouble, and critics appealed to advertisers to boycott his show last summer after Beck said President Obama had “a deep-seated hatred for white people.”
More than 400 Fox advertisers told the company they did not want their spots on Beck’s show.
Beck said that he went to Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and CEO, in January to discuss ways they could continue to work together without the daily show.
“We felt Glenn brought additional information, a unique perspective, a certain amount of passion and insight to the channel and he did,” Ailes said. “But that story of what’s going on and why America is in trouble today, I think he told that story as well as could be told.”
Viewers had begun turning away. Beck’s 4 p.m. show averaged 2.7 million viewers during the first three months of 2010, and was at just under 2 million for the same period this year, the Nielsen Co. said. His decline was sharper among younger viewers sought by advertisers.
Beck said ratings for his television show were not an issue, noting that “we have buried the competition in every sense.”
He has built a powerful brand for himself through a daily radio show, best-selling books and personal appearances. Beck is scheduled to speak at the Chicago Theatre on April 14.
AP
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