![](\"\/Pix\/Charts\/beck-0508.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThat’s right! Glenn Beck is the worst program on cable news. And while the quality of the program, or lack thereof, has certainly earned Beck the award for garbage-caster of the year, that isn’t what I’m talking about today. It’s Beck’s ratings for the month of May 2008, that confirm his place at rock bottom of the prime time cable news pile. One would have to wonder why CNN sticks with Beck who presides over the lowest rated program at any time, on any network, during prime time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is nothing new for Beck, whose program has been a perennial loser. The results of the May survey affirm the continuing lackluster performance evident in previous periods. They are so similar to those from last November<\/a>, that I could just cut and paste the analysis and commentary I posted at that time and it would describe the more recent results perfectly. In fact, I think I will…<\/p>\n When CNN announced the hiring<\/a> of radio talk jock Glenn Beck almost two years ago, they used words like “cordial,”<\/em> “conversational”<\/em> and “not confrontational”<\/em> to describe him. What they delivered was the polar opposite of that, as has been well documented by Media Matters<\/a>. Despite CNN’s laughable depiction of Beck as “Miss Congeniality,”<\/em> they knew exactly the sort of piffle they were peddling. Their programming strategy stated at the time was to…<\/span><\/p>\n “…build Beck into the type of TV personality that could siphon viewers from Bill O’Reilly, Joe Scarborough and other conservative hosts.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They failed.<\/span><\/p>\n Beck’s ratings for May 2008 (25-54 demo) reveal a program on life support. At this point the humane thing to do would be to pull the plug and put Beck (and innocent TV viewers) out of their misery. As shown above, Beck loses to all of his competitors in cable news. Both his live show and his repeat come in 4th out of four programs. But that’s not the end of his problems. While Beck is unable to challenge his competition, he is also the weakest link on his own network. The two lowest rated hours on Headline News belong to Beck. He is a TV anchor who is performing like a ship’s anchor and weighing down the network’s line-up.<\/span><\/p>\n So what is CNN waiting for? Are they masochistic gluttons for punishment who get pleasure from losing? Are they married to the repulsive and repudiated ideology spewed by Beck? Are they frightened, ineffectual, corporate bootlickers who couldn’t make a proper programming decision without a sackful of surveys and permission from their supervisor? It is just this simple: There is no business case for keeping Beck on the air. His program is a money pit and it’s fiscally harmful to the programs adjacent to it and, therefore, the network as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n The only reason to give Beck a stay of execution would be fealty to the brand of caveman conservatism that he espouses. If CNN doesn’t cancel this stinker they will have settled, once and for all, the speculation as to whether they are a compromised media lapdog with an agenda aimed at placating the powerful and debasing journalism.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s time to pull the plug. Let CNN\/Headline News know that Glenn Beck has to go. Let them know that you’re on to them and that keeping a loser like Beck reveals their biases. Let them know that you’re more interested in news and honest commentary than shallow contrarianism. Let them know that, although CNN has an obligation to provide diverse viewpoints, they have never had a program hosted by a progressive.<\/strong> And let them know that you have alternatives now (i.e. MSNBC, radio, the Internet, etc.) and you will not continue to watch CNN as long as it fails to provide programming that is honest, ethical and relevant to you, your community and your country.<\/span><\/p>\n Returning to the present…A lot has happened in the past few months in Cable Newsland. Most notably the rise of MSNBC, which has more than doubled its viewers year over year, while the other nets struggled to remain even or showed small gains. Programming changes at MSNBC included the cancellation of Tucker Carlson, who was replaced by David Gregory’s Race to the White House<\/em>. Gregory has significantly improved the time period he took over. The same is true for Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, which added a replay in place of one of the Doc Block hours.<\/p>\n Fox News has also changed their line-up. They canceled John Gibson’s not-so Big Story<\/em>, and, more recently, they bumped E.D. “Terrorist Fist Jab”<\/em> Hill. They also added Karl Rove, scheduled a new show for O’Reilly fill-in, Laura Ingraham, and just today announced that failed Republican presidential candidate, Gov. Mike Huckabee, would be their newest political contributor.<\/p>\n While these networks are altering their fare, the only things CNN has done is move Lou Dobbs an hour later and swap Paula Zahn for Campbell Brown (Republican operative Dan Senor’s wife). Perhaps this would be a good time to reevaluate their strategy. Perhaps it might benefit the network, and its viewers, if they dumped the dead weight and showed some real diversity. Maybe they could recognize where the growth is in this market and consider giving someone like Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Sam Seder, Jim Hightower, Laura Flanders, Harry Shearer, or any other of the many distinguished progressive commentators, a chance to show what they can do in Beck’s time slot. They could even draft their own Jack Cafferty who has developed a cult following on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Anyone but Beck!<\/p>\n Contact CNN and help them see the light. That’s right! Glenn Beck is the worst program on cable news. And while the quality of the program, or lack thereof, has certainly earned Beck the award for garbage-caster of the year, that isn’t what I’m talking about today. It’s Beck’s ratings for the month of May 2008, that confirm his place at rock bottom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[42,44,319,23,22],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-ratings","tag-cnn","tag-glenn-beck","tag-headline-news","tag-keith-olbermann","tag-msnbc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-fd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4564,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4564","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":0},"title":"May Cable News Ratings: Fox News Gets Stomped","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/1\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ratings for cable news for the month of May 2011, bring bad news for Fox News. In the key demographic group of 25-54 year-olds, Fox was alone in declining during the primetime hours. This was a really bad month for Fox News which lost viewers in the demo for every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":514,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=514","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":1},"title":"Glenn Beck’s Weak On CNN","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/10\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Glenn Beck may not want you to know what a dismal failure he was when he ventured out from his perch on Headline News to replace Paula Zahn for a week on CNN. But here's the bad news for Beck: The bad news for the rest of us was that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":704,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=704","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":2},"title":"Glenn Beck’s Ratings: Headline Snooze","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/13\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"When CNN announced the hiring of radio talk jock Glenn Beck almost two years ago, they used words like \"cordial,\" \"conversational\" and \"not confrontational\" to describe him. What they delivered was the polar opposite of that, as has been well documented by Media Matters. Despite CNN's laughable depiction of Beck\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1097,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1097","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":3},"title":"Glenn Beck To Suck On Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/17\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20307,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=20307","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":4},"title":"Holy F**k! CNN Explores Joint Venture With Paranoid, Racist, Lunatic Glenn Beck","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/23\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"As if to prove that television news executives are lowest form of life on the planet, CNN recently held talks with Glenn Beck about forming a joint venture between the struggling network and Beck's lame video blog, The Blaze. According to a report in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Glenn Beck CNN","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-cnn-talks.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-cnn-talks.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/beck-cnn-talks.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4769,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4769","url_meta":{"origin":943,"position":5},"title":"Fox News Continues Ratings Slump – Q2 2011","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/29\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This is becoming redundant, but the latest ratings survey once again has Fox News slouching alone as the only cable news network to lose viewers year-over-year. The decline holds for both total viewers and for the 25-54 year old demographic, with the worst showing a double-digit decline in the demo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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