The Tattlesnake -- Glenn Beck's Greased Rail Edition

News Item: Glenn Beck Has Lost 1/3 of His TV Audience Since January

A Shame He'll Miss Out on the Tar and Feathers

Unlike his semi-serious colleagues O'Reilly and Hannity, Beck was always just a babbling flash in the pan; a sideshow freak-out of raving, nearly incoherent right-wing outrage and contradictory conspiracy theories. He had to keep topping himself in craziness or risk boring his audience with deadly repetition. He's now run out of ideas and gone with the latter, and his viewers are turning him off, so his only hope for a final ratings coup is to go out like a flaming comet with a total on-air screeching psychotic meltdown and then R&R at some luxurious mental rehab facility. But don't fret for Beck – he's made many more millions from his strange circus act than most legitimate clowns.

With his ratings dropping, nearly all of his A-line advertisers gone, and his goofy Prof. Irwin Corey and Howard Beal Meet Joe McCarthy routine growing stale, isn't it high time for Uncle Rupert to show Glenn Beck the door?

"Let's put Beck's ratings into context. Yes, in the world of cable news, his numbers are impressive, and virtually any host would be happy to have them. But look how far Glenn Beck has fallen recently. In late January and into February, the program was averaging 3 million viewers each week. And late last year, the show spent month after month flirting with that figure. Today, the viewership is trending around 2 million (Last week it was exactly 2.01 million viewers.) -- which means that in a span of just three months, Glenn Beck has lost nearly one-third of its television audience."
[…]
"Corporate America (aka the beloved free marketplace) wants nothing to do with Beck. … Today, there are less than a handful of nationally recognized advertisers who appear willing to purchase air time on Glenn Beck. Think about the deep, deep discounts Fox News likely has to offer the remaining advertisers in order to get them to come aboard. (And the show is supposed to be a hit.) Now add to that equation the fact that Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its audience since January, and you can see where this is heading for Fox News.
"How soft are Beck's current ratings? He's now posting the type of numbers that his show used to get when he was on vacation and somebody less famous stood in for him, like when he took a few days off in late March and his show averaged 1.9 million viewers. Beck's been back from his March vacation for weeks now, but his ratings are roughly the same as when he wasn't even there."
-- Eric Boehlert, "Glenn Beck Has Lost 1/3 of Its TV Audience Since January," Media Matters, April 20, 2010.

Prediction: Beck will be off of Fox News before 2011.