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Eric Boehlert

Eric Boehlert

Posted: April 28, 2010 08:32 AM

Glenn Beck Has Lost 1/3 of Its TV Audience Since January

What's Your Reaction:

Should we blame it on the Massa Moment?

Will that Hindenburg performance soon be seen as the turning point for Glenn Beck: the pivotal moment when the Fox News show began to permanently leak viewers?

Who can forget the March day that will live in cable news infamy, when Beck invited embattled Democratic Congressman Eric Massa onto his show, for an entire hour, to blow the whistle on Democratic Party corruption? Or so Beck thought. Instead, Massa went on and on about tickle fights, and Beck became a laughing stock -- the butt of endless Geraldo-opens-Al-Capone's-vault jokes.

The latest Nielsen low: Glenn Beck just posted another ratings low for this year. The new mark was set last Thursday when the show attracted 1.82 million viewers. The host's previous, non-vacation low for 2010 had been 1.97 million viewers. That low-ebb mark was set on April 9.

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.

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.

In fact, if the precipitous Glenn Beck ratings trend continues, the show will soon be regularly attracting many, many fewer viewers than it did 12 months ago -- an astonishing turn of events for a signature show that's supposed to be at the forefront of a political revolution.

Read the entire Media Matters column, here.

 
 
 

Follow Eric Boehlert on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EricBoehlert

 
 
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09:38 AM on 05/18/2010
America is finally - well hopefully- tired of sensationalist media.
IMOPINIONH8D
because I want it empty...
09:50 AM on 05/02/2010
beck is just like planun they spread lies and fear nothing more. no truth, no hope,name calling. But they are using that religious angle looking or some naive support.
10:32 PM on 05/01/2010
Eric... if you want to see another GlenDuh connection and WHO supports him
make sure you don't miss the story posted just on Palingates about Bobby Joe Manziel.

Criminals from the Oil business paying them for speaking fees. Nice huh.

http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/05/sarah-palin-and-glenn-beck-complain.html?dsq=47972298#comment-47972298
08:06 PM on 05/22/2010
Just to let you know just because a person plays at a specific venue doesn't mean that the venue, the people that run the venue, or the people the own it support it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
AdHack
Dr. Syn
06:00 PM on 04/30/2010
It wasn't Massa. It was his taking on compassionate Christianity. That was a big, big mistake.
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
edified
06:41 PM on 04/30/2010
That was a big one, but I also think the knowledge that he is worth 32 million, kind of made some folks think he wasn't one of them either.
12:10 AM on 05/01/2010
Yep. That's exactly my thoughts.
10:28 AM on 04/30/2010
Other than me and 2 others, how many people read your ramblings?
06:40 AM on 04/30/2010
I see another appendicitis removal in his future
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
thinkingwomanmillstone
My life is microbiodegradable.
09:04 PM on 04/29/2010
Perhaps it's because all of his viewers have been officially pronounced brain dead and one of Sister Sarah's death panels has pulled their plugs.
05:52 PM on 04/29/2010
Could you imagine if he was in the same time slot as the people he is compared to? Hahaha That is what makes this so funny. He is on at 2PM! on the west and 5PM in the East, what his show has accomplished with that is remarkable. Please please please prove what's on the show wrong, and then attack him and his ratings, he has only taken back one thing he has said because it was false in the entire year on FOX. Please go after his information, not his personality. He wants to be wrong and I certainly hope he is, but no one has held a candle of counter evidence to a word he has said.
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PathofTotality
Regret serves no purpose
12:43 PM on 04/30/2010
Actually, nothing Beck says is wrong because everything he says is opinion, conjecture or commentary and any sentence that starts with "as the polls show" I ignore anyway.
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
bratcat
I don't get drunk, I get awesome.
06:51 PM on 04/30/2010
beware of the OLIGARHY!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
DevonTexas
Eternal Optimism
05:01 PM on 04/29/2010
most of his viewers are getting clued into the hype and the money-making operation that is Beck.
Also, a lot of people don't want to be witness when he crashes and burns. It won't be pretty and it's happened several times before.
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hmbascom
Writer, photographer & artist
04:29 PM on 04/29/2010
Beck is a one trick pony. Even the craziest of his listeners are bound to become bored with the same old trick.
05:54 PM on 04/29/2010
Name a Beck lie. And then inform him via email, and you will get on his show. Go. I promise if you prove him wrong on anything, it will become news and you will be the hero.
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LMPE
I connect the most dissimilar things
06:13 PM on 04/29/2010
Example: GB claimed that the statues outside the NBC building represent the Soviet Union. They do not. The statues do not represent anything.
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mommadona
I paint. I blog. Therefore, I am.
10:15 PM on 05/01/2010
Progressives hate Jesus ~ he knew the dude who owned the boat his mom died on and went on that boat with that dude and had a heart to heart talk w/him about 'life after mom's suicide" (the dude died WITH his mom, so kinda impossible)~(this is like shooting fish inna barrel)
'
04:19 PM on 04/29/2010
I feel bad for him.

Not really!
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DevonTexas
Eternal Optimism
05:01 PM on 04/29/2010
LOL
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mommadona
I paint. I blog. Therefore, I am.
04:00 PM on 04/29/2010
"All eggs in one basket" comes to mind~ he's "Johnny One Note" ~ once you've had the bejebus scared out of you by the rodeo clown, anything else is ..."ok, what ELSE ya got?" and he didn't have much more than hot air to begin with.

Pooor Johnny One Note ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zfzqak7nuQ
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
eyelashviper
In wilderness is the preservation of the world
03:36 PM on 04/29/2010
His viewing audience is disappearing because:

They're lost somewhere on the "teab.a.g.ger trail".
They've been institutionalized for Alzheimers, Ps.ych.0sis, Terminal Nar.cissism, or are a threat to themselves or others.
They're doing hard time
They've been Rap.tured.
De-evolution...no longer have opposing thumbs for working remote control to teevee.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
LonosCurse
Some may never live, but the crazy never die
03:26 PM on 04/29/2010
Next time he tears up it will be real.
11:38 AM on 04/29/2010
People can live in an atmosphere of panic that Beck's conspiracy fears foster only so long before that sense of imminent threat exhausts them into depression or apathy. He's broken his audience down with his "THEWORLDISENDING!!!" rants, and they just can't take any more.

Let's hope they wake up from their coma and start to see what's really happening, rather than what Beck imagines is happening.