In what may seem like an obvious and long overdue match up, Glenn Beck will be leaving CNN for Fox News early next year. This should be good news for CNN because Beck’s show has performed terribly on the their Headline News Network (HLN). It is consistently in last place amongst its cable news competitors, and is the lowest rated program on HLN’s primetime schedule.

Despite bragging about how Beck had improved the time period for HLN, Beck has actually lagged other programs on the network. Nancy Grace pulls in twice as many viewers as Beck. All news networks experienced growth this year due to the presidential election. However, while Grace increased her audience 100%, Beck managed a paltry by comparison 34% gain over his third quarter performance last year in the key 25-54 year old demographic.

By it’s embrace of Beck, Fox News is providing more evidence (as if any were needed) of their intransigent partisanship. If they were smart, they would offer a show to Tanya Acker (who I love) or Bob Beckel (not so much) just to say they have one program from a left of center perspective.

So what is Fox getting for their trouble? They are getting the most ignorant and obnoxious host on cable news. They are getting a perennial ratings loser. They are getting an unrepentant racist provocateur. They are getting an ego-centric ideologue that CNN originally described as someone “that could siphon viewers from Bill O’Reilly, Joe Scarborough and other conservative hosts.” Now he won’t need to as he and O’Reilly will be able to promote each other. There is no question that Beck will feel more at home at Fox. In a comment responding to his new contract he even admitted that Fox News will be a better fit because…

“I’m kind of an island over at Headline. It’s kind of difficult because I’ve got to bring my own audience over to Headline.”

Well he won’t have to do that for Fox, because it comes complete with its own congregation of rightist believers. That will serve as an advantage to Beck who will have access to a much larger and better trained audience than he had at HLN. Plus, he was about to lose his nightly repeat broadcast to a rerun of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. That undoubtedly had some impact on his decision to jump ship. However, his Fox show will air earlier in the day at a time that has lower HUT (homes using TV) levels, in a time period that has featured previous losers like John Gibson and Laura Ingraham – both now canceled.

The open question now is, “What will CNN do with the vacant time slot?” One option would be to return to their original mission of providing summaries of breaking news events. But since the ratings trends favor personality-driven talk, they will likely seek a new, opinionated host.

This would be a good time to point out that CNN has never had a single program hosted by a liberal. Not one. But they have cycled through multiple conservative hosts. They may want to take note that MSNBC is the presently the fastest growing cable news network thanks to Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and the newest talk show sensation, Rachel Maddow. There are numerous progressive personalities available if CNN chose to demonstrate some market savvy as well as some content diversity. They could even reward their own Jack Cafferty with a promotion. He is wildly popular and, while he’s not exactly a liberal, he connects with everyone who is fed up with whatever status quo is at play.

Will CNN do the right/smart thing? Judging by their past I would not bet on it. But they have an opportunity and perhaps they may not squander it if they get some encouragement from viewers. CNN’s email: CNN / Headline News

Update: CNN has announced that Jane Velez Mitchell, beginning tonight, will serve as the interim host for the time period Beck is vacating. It is notable that CNN is pulling Beck from the schedule the day after revealing his agreement with Fox News. Beck’s contract doesn’t expire until February. Perhaps CNN is upset at Beck’s departure (though they should be grateful). More likely they see no reason to permit a future competitor to continue to promote himself on their air.

Velez-Mitchell is an unknown quantity so far as political commentary is concerned. She has done a lot of court reporting (i.e. Michael Jackson) and is a frequent substitute for Nancy Grace. She is also an out lesbian (hello Rachel), a vegan, and an opponent of animal cruelty, for what it’s worth. Last year she contributed $800.00 to the presidential campaign of fellow vegan Dennis Kucinich.