Fox News reportedly set to ditch Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck, a controversial right wing commentator on Fox News, could be set to depart America’s most partisan news channel, according to the New York Times.
The paper cites unnamed Fox execs as “contemplating life without Mr Beck” after the ‘shock jock’s’ paranoid style lost 1m viewers between January 2010 and January 2011 as more moderate viewers switched off – and top advertisers pulled their support.
Beck has landed his employers in embarrassment recently, notably a rant against financier George Soros in which Beck said of the Holocaust survivor: "Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps."
The New Republic speculated: “Beck's commercial viability also seems to have suffered. His viewership among 25- to 54-year-olds, a prized advertising demographic, declined by almost one-half in 2010. An advertising boycott organized by liberal groups has caused over 300 companies - including Procter & Gamble, UPS, Coca-Cola, and Wal-Mart—to stop showing commercials during Beck's show.
“The Beck brand isn't what it used to be off the airwaves either: His most recent non-fiction book, Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure, was his first book in eight years not to reach number one on The New York Times best-seller list.”