A January ratings plunge for Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News leads to the question of whether the talk show host is losing his popularity, writes Nellie Andreeva at Deadline.com.
"Glenn Beck" averaged 1.8 million viewers in January, representing a 39% drop from a year earlier, the story notes. Among viewers between the ages of 25 to 54, the plunge was 48%, with viewers in the demographic dropping to 397,000, the article adds.
Some of the decline may be explained by last January’s high ratings for Fox News, helped by interest in the Massachusetts governor race, the piece points out.
Andreeva writes that despite that, last month’s ratings represent "a very steep decline for Beck, who peaked at 2.8 million viewers in 2009, drawing more viewers than all of his cable news competitors combined."
The story also says that Fox News’ "On the Record with Greta" dropped 36% in total viewers, while CNN’s "Anderson Cooper" dropped 34% in total viewers last month.
Andreeva adds, "Beck has also come under fire for his attacking style and controversial remarks, including his 2009 statement that President Obama was a racist that led to in a number of advertisers pulling from his show. As of Sept. 2010, 296 advertisers had asked not to be on Glenn Beck, up from 26 in August 2009."
i think he has lost it a long time ago.
What Deadline is spinning here is the viewership is still higher than that of his competitors.
For example, Anderson Cooper last year was averaging 582,000 viewers, with 180,000 in the 25-54 demo, meaning Beck was outdrawing them by a factor of over 2x in the demo, 3x in total.
So while Beck’s viewership was down, all news channel viewership was down.
It’s not an anti-Beck trend, it’s a more general viewership trend.
Oh, oh. Sagging ratings. Guess what that means? As Stephen Colbert would say, “jack up the crazy and rip off the knobs!”
The less Beck for the country the better. A pompous, fat and obnoxious fool who does nothing to further intelligent discussion of issues in this country. He’s divisive, ignorant and a twister of truth to suit his devious purposes. A smug, alienating boob.