Almost every time I flipped on television last week, there was a
deeply angry guy on a running tirade about the conspiracies afoot, the
enemies around all corners, and how he alone seemed to understand what
was under way.
While it’s true that Charlie Sheen sucked up a lot of airtime last
week, I’d been watching Glenn Beck, the Fox News host who invoked
Hezbollah, socialists, the price of gas, Shariah law, George Soros,
Planned Parenthood, and, yes, Charlie Sheen, as he predicted a coming
apocalypse.
Mr. Beck, a conservative Jeremiah and talk-radio phenomenon, burst
into television prominence in 2009 by taking the forsaken 5 p.m. slot
on Fox News and turning it into a juggernaut. A conjurer of
conspiracies who spotted sedition everywhere he looked, Mr. Beck struck
a big chord and ended up on the
cover of Time magazine and The
New York Times Magazine,
and held rallies all over the country that were mobbed with acolytes.
He achieved unheard-of ratings, swamped the competition and at times
seemed to threaten the dominion of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity at
Fox.
But a funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since
last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the
Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over
a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other
hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care
debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more
than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.
He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy
and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his
competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox
News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t
want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking
at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without
Mr. Beck.
On the other side, people who work for Mr. Beck point out that he
could live without Fox News. Unlike some other cable hosts, Mr. Beck
has a huge multiplatform presence: he has sold around four million
books, is near the top of talk-radio ratings, has a growing Web site
called
The Blaze, along with a stage performance that still packs houses. Forbes estimated that his company, Mercury Radio Arts, had
more than $30 million in revenue.
How could a breakup between Mr. Beck and Fox News — a bond that
seemed made in pre-Apocalyptic heaven — come to pass? They were never
great friends to start with: Mr. Beck came to Fox with a huge radio
show and had been on CNN Headline News, so he did not owe his entire
career to Fox and frequently went off-message. The sniping between Fox
News executives and Mr. Beck’s team began soon after he went on the air
in 2009.
Many on the news side of Fox have wondered whether his chronic
outrageousness — he suggested that the president has “a deep-seated
hatred for white people” — have made it difficult for Fox to hang onto
its credibility as a news network. Some 300 advertisers fled the show,
leaving sponsorship to a slew of gold bullion marketers whose message
dovetails nicely with Mr. Beck’s end-of-times gospel. Both parties go
to some lengths to point out that that the discussion has nothing to do
with persistent criticism from the left.
But the partnership, which has been good for both parties, may yet
be repaired. On Wednesday’s show, Mr. Beck went to some lengths to
demonstrate
gratitude and fealty to Fox News.
“Two years ago, I was on a cable channel that no one was watching at
the time, doing a show that no one was watching, and I was about to
leave television. And then I had the opportunity to come and work
here,” he said. “If you’re going to do news or commentary, the only
place, I think in the world, the only place that really makes an impact
is Fox.”
William Kristol of The Weekly Standard suggested that Mr. Beck is
“marginalizing himself”
by arguing that socialists and leftists were working with Islamic
radicals to sow worldwide chaos. But Mr. Beck has always marched to his
own idiosyncratic music, and his ratings actually began dropping long
before Egypt rose up against its leader.
The problem with “Glenn Beck” is that it has turned into a serial doomsday machine that’s a bummer to watch.
Mr. Beck, a more gifted entertainer than most cable hosts, can still
bring it, lighting up with characters and voices. But much of the time,
there is sense that the fatigue from always being on alert, tilting
forward in the saddle against the next menace, is starting to wear him
down.
What had been a fast and loose assault on all things liberal has
grown darker and less entertaining, especially with the growing
revolution in the Middle East, a phenomenon Mr. Beck sees as something
of a beginning to some kind of end. He’s often alone in the studio with
his chalkboards and obscure factoids, a setting that reminds me of an
undergrad seminar on macroeconomics with an around-the-bend professor I
didn’t particularly enjoy.
Last Wednesday, as he grabbed all the disparate strands from around
the globe and tied them into a great, grand bow of doom, he ambled
alone between various blackboards, each jammed with portentous bullet
points. He often looked away from the camera into a middle distance as
he spoke of a calamity that only he can see.
cont story…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/media/07carr.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=busln
by
randyedye
Phil Collins has decided to bow out from the business that made him. The British singer has reportedly 
