MEDIA MATTERS: Let’s put Beck’s ratings into context. Yes, in the world of cable news, his numbers are impressive, and virtually any host would be happy to have them. But look how far Glenn Beck has fallen recently. In late January and into February, the program was averaging 3 million viewers each week. And late last year, the show spent month after month flirting with that figure. Today, the viewership is trending around 2 million (Last week it was exactly 2.01 million viewers.) — which means that in a span of just three months, Glenn Beck has lost nearly one-third of its television audience.And that has to be sending up all kinds of red flags inside Fox News, which already struggles to find any big-name advertisers to fill out the commercials on the controversial show. Keep in mind, there are more than 200 companies that have gone on the record as saying they will not buy ad time on Glenn Beck’s show. Applebee’s? No. AT&T? No. Bank of America? No. Best Buy, Campbell Soup, CVS, Ditech, Farmers Insurance Group, GEICO, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Lowe’s, Nutrisystem, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Sprint, State Farm Insurance, The UPS Store, Travelers Insurance, Verizon Wireless, Vonage, or Wal-Mart?
No.
Corporate America (aka the beloved free marketplace) wants nothing to do with Beck. (Sort of like the NFL wanted nothing to do with Rush Limbaugh last year.) Today, there are less than a handful of nationally recognized advertisers who appear willing to purchase air time on Glenn Beck. Think about the deep, deep discounts Fox News likely has to offer the remaining advertisers in order to get them to come aboard. (And the show is supposed to be a hit.) Now add to that equation the fact that Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its audience since January, and you can see where this is heading for Fox News. How soft are Beck’s current ratings? He’s now posting the type of numbers that his show used to get when he was on vacation and somebody less famous stood in for him, like when he took a few days off in late March and his show averaged 1.9 million viewers. Beck’s been back from his March vacation for weeks now, but his ratings are roughly the same as when he wasn’t even there. MORE