As boycott continues, Glenn Beck's audience swells

[RamboLiberal]

Source: LA Times

An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator's viewership has grown.

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

“FOX News' Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House,” she wrote Wednesday to her 800,000-plus supporters.

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As a result, few major businesses remain as sponsors of Beck’s eponymous 2 p.m. PDT program. On Wednesday, the only big companies with a presence during his show were Bank of America and the Wall Street Journal, whose parent company News Corp. also owns Fox News. The rest of the commercials included spots for gold seller Rosland Capital; Ashley Furniture Home Store; Empire Carpet; Liberty Medical, a diabetes medical supplier; Johnson Law Group, an asbestos litigation firm; “Shadow Government,” a new book critical of Obama published by the National Republican Trust; and the anti-tax group TeaPartyExpress.org.

Fox News insists that the boycott has not affected its revenue, because advertisers have just moved their commercials to different time periods. And for his part, Beck appears invigorated by the challenge. “Even if the powers to be right now succeed in making me poor, drum me out … I will only be stronger for it,” he said on the air Wednesday. “And I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get this message out, on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful. Because of my faith, I know how this story ends. The truth will set you free.”


Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/08/as-boycott-continues-glenn-becks-audience-swells.html

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According to Color of Change, 10 more companies that have recently had ads air during Beck's program have pledged not to run any further advertising on his show. The latest businesses to distance themselves from the Fox News host include Applebee's, Bank of America, Bell & Howell, DirecTV, General Mills, Kraft, Regions Financial Corp., SAM (Store and Move), Travelers Insurance and Vonage.

[Faygo Kid]

1. He's nuts. Shows you where the right wing is at now. Dangerous.

He's completely off the deep end. Just can't be nuts enough for some people, I guess.

[jasi2006]

26. All of this stuff is exposing how really, really racist and evil the RW

-GOP loyalists are. If people hadn't realized that before, they should now and this should be a wake-up call. These folks are more dangerous to a stable, thriving USA thn Al-queda.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Who gives a fuck?

[Bobbieo]

4. We all really should!!!!

[City Lights]

5. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[sam sarrha]

3. sounds like a narcissistic sociopath.. will do anything at anyones expense for adulation..

[librechik]

6. Howard Beals' ratings increased as he grew more suicidal and crazy too

Network is a great movie--

[tularetom]

7. I honestly believe that if every advertiser in the free world was to dump the beck program

Faux would continue to run it at a loss for awhile to show us left wing loons that they can't be intimidated. Murdoch would then just raise his rates for advertising on other shows to compensate for the lost revenue.

Of course extending the boycott to the entire Faux "News" network would solve that.

[RamboLiberal]

8. IMHO that's exactly what Faux will do

Buzzflash editor has it correct.

FOX Won't Fire Glenn Beck: Here's Why.

•Beck is becoming an increasingly key factor in inciting the hateful mobs, and his seemingly crazed incivility and jaw-dropping antics that we find abhorrent are exactly what FOX finds valuable in him. He's breaking away with record audiences in a non-prime time spot, rising recently to surpass Hannity's audience. In fact the brilliant boycott led by ColorofChange.org is giving him more publicity and driving more confused, television-fed simple minded white Americans to his program.

•FOX will carry Beck indefinitely with small time ads -- even ads for FOX divisions as they are doing now -- because: 1) they hope to eventually shift other FOX advertisers to his program; 2) they hope that some of the more than 30 companies now not advertising will come back when the heat dies down; 3) FOX would lose credibility with its entire red meat audience if it backed down from a fight; 4) it would make FOX vulnerable to boycotts in regards to its entire propaganda network programming; and 5) Beck is doing exactly what FOX wants him to do, which is distract the confused white masses from blaming corporations for their economic plight to blaming scapegoats -- in this case non-whites.

•FOX is Rupert Murdoch's main vehicle for ensuring the continued and unquestioned greed of the corporate ruling class, and Beck is the most successful gutter carnival barker in terms of churning up hateful and igniting emotions that they have. He touches something so evil and primal in the chronically confused and white-firsters that he makes Hannity appear civil. Beck is a strategic thespian of both the most skilled and basest sort: this makes him a star to FOX, not a pariah.

•As BuzzFlash has noted many a time, Naomi Klein many years ago awoke us to the concept that many big corporate advertisers back the right wing media shills to insure that the heat for fleecing the American economy is diverted to blaming the government, liberals, minorities and immigrants. Many top advertisers are not so much selling products through advertising as they are financing a political strategy of diversion through the winger media megaphone. FOX understands this and knows that eventually it will find companies that are not as consumer-oriented to "advertise" on Beck's program, because they are buying insurance on using mobs and creating a "frame" that stops legislation that would impede their gross profiteering and abandonment of the American worker.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9298

[vduhr]

49. I would love to write another letter to the entire Fox network....

I think it is time that we boycott the advertisers on the entire Fox Network. I was watching the Ted Kennedy funeral on MSNBC and it was so touching. At the end of the funeral, it was too dark to see anything so MSNBC just stayed quiet and focused their cameras on the night sky, where the clouds were being lit up by lightening, and the crickets and cicadas could be heard in the back ground. It was absolutely beautiful. Then MSNBC, as a courtesy to the family, ended their broadcast of the funeral to allow privacy for family. I thought that was such a touching gesture.

THEN...out of curiosity, I turn to Fox to see what they were doing. There, on the screen was the Huckabee show he was interview comedienne Frank Caliendo, laughing and talking, while only bits of news on Kennedy's funeral rolled across the bottom of the screen. It angered me that they didn't even have the decency to air the funeral. Even CNN was showing a documentary about Ted Kennedy. But Fox...nada! They are detestable.

[BreweryYardRat]

57. Actually, Fox did air the funeral. They just stopped covering it after the grandchildren's remarks.

Even Fox Snooze couldn't get away with completely ignoring Ted Kennedy's funeral. They just took the lazy approach.

[Mz Pip]

9. Are people tuning in

because they agree with his insane babblings or are they tuning in because it's like watching a train wreck - awful, but impossible to turn away from.

I suspect he has his usually batch of layl nutcases but the new viewers are in it for the horror of it all.

Mz Pip

[rfranklin]

20. They probably like what he says,..they are only one percent of...

the population. Unfortunately, like the proverbial squeaky wheel, Beck and his angry, confused audience get all the attention.

[Hansel]

37. I think it's partly to watch the train wreck, but also Palin is ...

telling her sheep to tune in as a anti-boycott. The sniveling drooling sheep will do whatever this moron tells them to. Anyway, Glenn is their type of guy. A racist self-pitying moron.

[Ex Lurker]

10. Limbaugh never had any major corporate sponsors

and he's still around. There's always some fly by night outfit willing to pony up. The most notable thing is how few people actually watch him-less than 1% of the population. Most of the country isn't paying attention to Fox OR MSNBC.

[dbonds]

17. You don't think Limbaugh has a benefactor ?

He isn't there by market principles.

[Ex Lurker]

18. he has plenty of advertisers

but the big boys stay away.

[dbonds]

19. Advertisers is not what I meant.

I meant big pockets that created him.

[bemildred]

11. Sure it is, never been better, it's like a gift when your advertisers all leave.

:rofl::rofl:

[TwilightZone]

12. It's temporary.

It's the TV equivalent of a gawker slowdown. Gotta check out the car crash.

[Grassy Knoll]

23. Exactly..

Millions of NASCAR fans watch for the wrecks,
and don't really care who won.

[NecklyTyler]

25. Rubber necking the car crash

As intelligent people get a taste of right wing hate talk, his audience will shrink down to nothing

People finding out about Becks insane ideas is probably a good thing

[tomm2thumbs]

13. and everyone slows down to look at a car wreck. It won't improve America though.

on the contrary, if all we did is slow down to look at car wrecks, this country would be as big a mess as the Republican Party. Hence their desire to slow down and look at the 'wreck' that is Glenn Beck.

As for Democrats - look away and get things done. Beck the Wreck is for GOP distractions only.

[zbdent]

14. When they say that Beck's ratings went up ... don't they realize that

you can't count "my wife and my sister" as two separate people in his audience?

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

15. Proving, once again, that our nation has just as many extremists as other nations.

AND THAT they always seem to get MORE attention than others.

Personally, I think that hate-mongering profiteer, Glenn Beck, ought to have mass suits filed against him, along with his other hate-mongering cohorts, Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. etc. AND THEIR SPONSORS (especially,...their sponsors). They obviously are incapable of being shamed by their barbaric behavior; so, their pockets ought to be threatened, instead.

[zeemike]

16. I hate to point this out to them but 2.8 mil is less than 1%

Of the American people.
But they tout it as if it was wildly popular....
There are at least that many crazy people in this country.

[scarface2004]

21. nobody watches that shit!

how do they know how many watch that crap! i say zero!!!

[michreject]

22. Wal-Mart had one on today

I was in a bump shop lounge and saw it.

[vduhr]

50. Really?

I heard that they were one of the many that dropped him. Was it during the Glenn Beck show that you saw the ad?

[liberalmuse]

24. Crazy attracts crazy.

And god knows there are plenty of whackos in this country.

[edbermac]

27. Estimated US population as of today: 307,290,721

Subtract the 3 million that do watch means that 304,290,721 Americans DON'T watch Beck.

I'm real impressed Glen. :sarcasm:

http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

[no bad days]

28. Does anyone know....

The most watched show on cnn and # of viewers?

[RamboLiberal]

34. CNN

At 5PM Beck had just over 3 million, Blitzer on CNN had 688,000, MSNBC Hardball had 536,000.

At 8PM O' Reilly had 3.303 million, CNN special on Kennedy had 1.104 million and on MSNBC Countdown had 1.091 million (note Countdown usually beats CNN).

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_wednesday_august_26_129626.asp

[no bad days]

40. Thanks.....

Though we may wish it, with #'s like that I fail to see were Beck is in any trouble.

[beac]

29. And I know just what part of that audience is "swelling."

Wingnut loons find his racist ravings almost as arousing as Sarah Palin's moronic FB blithering.

[Crowman1979]

30. So what percentage of this audience were TVs at airports and hotels stuck on the faux channel?

People on vacation were having a good time. Until that asshole popped up on the screen to ruin everything!

[bermudat]

31. Can always make money off the stupidity of the American sheeple.

One day Beck is going to slip up and say the word n*gger on the air

or he is going to eat a bullet live on the air. I'm holding

out for the latter.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

32. Stupid, ignorant and irrational followers seem to be swelling in number...

Can we just find them a state that is willing to secede, and have them all rub elbows there? I mean, where they can appreciate all they have to offer in togetherness...

[TommyPaine]

33. The Pied Piper of Stupidity, Craziness, and Bullshit

Leading his rats further down the into the sewer. Forget about them; they're gone.

[libodem]

35. I think Ashley Furniture

is a Donny and Marie franchise, in other words Mormon, so is Bleck. They take care of their own. Wouldn't be surprised if the LDS church in all of its grand conservatism somehow sponsors and protects that psycho nut bag.

[laureloak]

36. We need to help save the FoxNews Zombies by extending

the pressure to drop advertising on ALL radio and TV shows that divide America.

[ashleyfurniture]

38. Ashley Furniture HomeStore not sponsoring Glenn Beck

Ashley Furniture HomeStore pulled its advertising from "Glenn Beck" as of Aug. 27.

-Ashley Furniture HomeStore spokeswoman Kendra Maggert

[CatholicEdHead]

42. Glad to hear it

Ashley furniture is a major employer in west central Wisconsin in the Arcdia area.

[Doctor_J]

39. A lot of DUers are tuning in and bragging about it

bringing self-hatred to new levels.

[Frank Cannon]

45. Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck... I've NEVER watched or listened to them

A) Life is too short.
B) My blood pressure is too high.
C) I pretty much know everything they're going to say. No mysteries there.
D) Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, etc., play clips on their shows, so why bother?

[and-justice-for-all]

41. Bullocks....I am not buying it...nt

[Roland99]

43. Ashley Furniture just lost some sales

I was about to buy LR and BR furniture from Ashley Furniture. No more!

[ima_sinnic]

44. apparently they just pulled out, too

look upthread, I just saw something about it there.

[Roland99]

48. Ah, so they apparently did.

Thanks.

[vduhr]

52. If you do go to their store to shop, before you buy...

you should ask them if they are still advertising on Glenn Beck's show. If they say yes, then walk out of the store.

[Roland99]

54. I doubt anyone at the store level would have the slightest clue about it.

[formercia]

46. Glenn Beck makes an ass of himself in front of 2.81 Million people.

That's success. :rofl:

[No Elephants]

47. More proof of their not so disguised racism, as if anyone needed more proof.

[vduhr]

51. It just dawned on me...

Was it Fox that reported this figure? Like, who keeps the tally on how many people are watching a certain show? If it is only that particular network where the show is aired. then should we believe Fox? They lie about everything else.

[truthisfreedom]

53. That's because scores of listeners are waiting for his next train wreck.

It's not because they like him. They're on death watch.

[Fading Captain]

55. It is scary

I work in a right wing community, and I sense something going on within the anti-government pro-gun crowd.

It's hard to imagine that anyone -- even on the right wing -- gets anything useful out of this moron's show.

[NJCher]

56. so not sexy

I watched a clip of him on some show like Dateline or 60 Minutes or whatever. It was painful and embarrassing to watch. The "humor" was awful. Lame. I don't see what anyone sees in him.

Furthermore, he is anemic looking--definitely not what one would call robust. There's no charisma. Nothing sexy or intriguing. I have no idea how he got where he is.

Cher

[JustAnotherGen]

58. Rubber Neckers

I'm one (hide head in paper bag). I watched the last 15 minutes on Tuesday - but I was :rofl:.

He's so Charles Manson crazy - seriously. You know how Charles Manson starts talking gibberish in his old interviews (you can find some of them on You Tube)?

That's what he was doing. I know I shouldn't laugh at a mentally ill person - but it's a Real Time Pschotic Break. We are watching him break from reality - he's that crazy.

At this point - I'm wondering if someone could place a call to his local police station for a wellness check. <---- Not joking here.

I don't think he's 'acting' - I think he's really in the midst of a deep 'mental break'. Now I don't have to like how it's showing itself - but there can be no other logical explanation of the manic look, the the body language, etc. etc. He's on the verge of the deep end.

I would hope if Rachel or Keith showed this type of behavior - at minimum a family member or a friend would step in quietly to help them.