When I want info on the Glenn Beck ad boycott, I go to Rupe Murdoch's Wall St Journal

[Bucky]

From the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch website...

For its part, Fox News said through a spokeswoman that while some advertisers have "removed their spots from Beck," they have just shifted to "other programs on the network, so there has been no revenue lost."

In other words, Fox has no economic reason to rein in Beck's race baiting comments. The "boycott" as it stands is purely cosmetic. Advertisers can pretend to take a moral stand while they continue to financially subsidize Glenn Beck and his unrelenting hate speech.

The boycott has to be against Fox News, otherwise it's just part of Murdoch's shell game.

[polichick]

1. So the boycott has to include ALL of Faux News - bet that's quite a list of sponsors! nt

[kirby]

2. I dont understand your post...

Boycott Fox News? I imagine 98% of the people on here never visit the channel.

[Bucky]

3. I'm not talking about viewers boycotting Fox News. Boycotts are by customers, not products.

A TV viewer boycotting a TV station makes as much sense as a chicken boycotting Colonel Sanders. You have to get the paying customers--the advertisers--to do the boycotting. People aren't consumers of news stations, they're the product that news stations sell to advertisers.

Class dismissed.

 

[kirby]

4. Maybe edit your post then...

"The boycott has to be against Fox News, otherwise it's just part of Murdoch's shell game. "

I guess you mean has to be against Fox News' advertisers.

[Bucky]

6. Ahem

There is no boycott of Fox News advertisers--only a petition to encourage those advertisers to do some boycotting.

The viewers don't matter in the economics of this equation. Besides, didn't I already tell you class was dismissed, young man?

[kirby]

7. Ok...

I wont bother you again, but while I understand what you are saying, your post is not clear and left this student confused until other people clarified.

Anyway, off to watch Obama.

[Edweird]

5. I believe the poster is saying we need to get the advertisers off 'fox' completely,

not just off becks show.

[anigbrowl]

8. They say that, but be patient

It's technically true they've lost no revenue, but only until the next round of ratings and financial statements. Yes, it would be good to encourage these advertisers to boycott Fox completely, but at the same time advertisers are slow to pull out of any large market; at best they'll postpone such decisions for several months, rather than get caught up in what's not really their fight. Beck, however, is only good for as long as his ratings hold up and Fox can find new buyers to replace the ones they've lost.

Think about it - the statement 'they've just shifted to other programs on the network, so there has been no revenue lost' doesn't actually make sense. Rotation to other programs could only result in equal revenue if they increase the number of spots on all their other shows, which would in turn lower the price-per-mention, which is one of the key metrics ad buyers look at.It's not like there are unfilled commercial slots saying 'this airtime for rent' scattered throughout their other shows, is it?

Alternatively, they could take advertisers away from other shows to make room, and use those ads to fill Beck's slots. But that's only only a stopgap strategy, since if an ad manager sees other companies fleeing the show they do not want their client to risk getting branded as 'the only company that will still advertise on Glenn Beck' unless they're selling solely to Republicans. In any case, you've got to lower the price to advertisers who may have originally paid to be seen on Billo or other popular shows and are now being used to fill up Glenn Beck's unwanted commercial slots.

so there will be a loss of revenue for Fox, it just won't come out until the next financial quarter. To the the extent that FNC tells Beck to dial it back, his ratings will suffer. So, celebrations of victory are premature, but so are counsels of despair.