http://www.glennbeck.com/publish/themes/glennbeck/live_player/
The Glenn Beck show wrote to me this morning, urging me to direct people to the “official” Glenn Beck free stream.
Long time readers know that I have long believed Glenn has been working on a Plan “B” to continue doing the show without being on terrestrial radio if the sponsorship boycotts and FCC pressures make the current syndication method via Premiere no longer viable. Over the holidays, Premiere let a significant portion of its staff go. The parent company Clear Channel is currently exploring options in restructing its debt.
Be sure to bookmark his official Glenn Beck free steam “just in case” you need it some day.
Thanks Art.
I isn’t working now at 6pm.
Anyway, I much prefer Glen on the TV than radio. On the radio with his posse he sounds like a bunch of 15 year olds who broke into a radio studio and hijacked the signal.
And I liked him more in his role as Muckraker Man. His work on exposing Van Jones and crew was pitch perfect.
Do you think Beck’s “free” streamer is an alternative to him moving to Sirius?
Well, Beck just hired the guy who used to run Premiere. Who is working for whom may still be an open question :)
Premiere laid off a bunch of people over the holidays – poking around, I think Streamlink went *poof*, but don’t quote me on that. Dr Laura is obviously gone, Rush seems to have his own domain for his streaming…. Coast to Coast still mentions Streamlink on their site.
It isn’t a secret that Beck is getting nervous about terrestrial radio – he fairly regularly alludes to not pinning his future on it. Clear Channel also laid off a big portion of their local news people, the few who still had jobs. Something is going on with the road information services – it sounds like someone is about to buy someone, but that’s not something I follow much. Things are moving very fast (Did someone say “The Quickening”?)…. I’m not sure people are planning beyond next week.
I asked the person from Mercury who informed me of the stream very specifically if it was going to be on 24 hrs a day, looping the 3 hours and was given a very clear answer that it was. The fact that the stream is currently silent makes me think perhaps someone didn’t check all the contract language. Time to keep my head down and stay out of the crossfire.
It’s working as of now. It took almost 5 mins. to load though. Been working fine for about an hour now. The bumper music is pretty “rockin'” too.
Thanks for the heads up Art.
I’m curious how many people will notice it and/or listen to it overnight when no stations carry the show.
One problem with this type of stream is it highlights that 20+ minutes of syndicated programs is news breaks and ads. The filler music can get old very fast and you lose interest waiting for the show to return.
Not only with this type of stream but any station you listen to online with a regular basis that fills the breaks with PSA’s in lieu of local commercials. I get to where they start to drive me nuts and wind up having to change stations every few months. I had to stop listening to Lou Dobbs on WOR because they kept playing the same 3 PSA’s over and over during breaks
If they are not going to broadcast the local commercials, I wish the would just fill the time with generic buffer music or dead air; hearing the same PSA’s over and over is annoying…
There was a TV show a while back (Married with Children?) where Mom was gone for a long time, and Dad and the kids chose their own meals. After a week, the kids were saying “Please can we have something green – anything!”
In the early streaming days, AFTRA blocked stations from running ads done by AFTRA Voiceover talent. Stations didn’t insert PSA’s in part because the technology didn’t exist yet. Streams would either be silent of filler music on a loop. Adding in commercials or even inane PSA’s makes it more tolerable.
This even extends to Sirius/XM – Andrew Wilkow has a show there. Shows need breaks, both for the audience and the host, and the flow of the show. His show has something like 7 minutes of non-host content per hour, mostly promos for other channels.
I think the 22+ minutes of ads and news feeds is crippling talk radio. There must be a way to pay the bills without the hosts constantly arranging their thoughts based on the timing to the next hard break, or stuffing 12 minutes of ads in the last 15 minutes (that’s basically caused by the way Arbitron computes ratings every 15 minutes – you just throw away the final QH and live with 3 out of 4 quarter hours). The problem is people learn there is nothing in the last QH and those ads never get heard. Eventually advertisers figure that out and go elsewhere.
Thank goodness! I am also annoyed by the PSA’s, but more importantly, I was beginning to think there were no businesses that had the money to advertise. It was a chilling to think the economy might be so bad that we were turning into a non-profit nation.
I’m with you – I’d much rather hear a local commercial, music, or even silence, than hearing my government tell me 150 times a day what to eat, drink, and think, or that I should not drink and drive, or to get medical tests.
I’m thinking of perhaps collecting a list and putting them into piles. All of them have the central theme that without government, you would be dead. Your children will get autism, your water will be polluted, your 9 year old will be trying drugs or having sex with guys in a park, you don’t have the things in life you want because evil bigoted white people hate you, etc…
I think that what has happened to Beck and Hannity is a result of what Premiere Radio is charging WPHT and WOR to broadcast them. Using locally produced shows and less expensive syndicated shows can produce a larger profit margin even at lower ratings . The same thing happened to Laura Ingraham on WNTP.
Beck didn’t help himself with his Philly sucks rant the day he went off the air here. There has been talk that a couple of stations are considering changing format to pick up some of the larger shows that are now available and not broadcast locally: Imus, Beck, Hannity, and Ingraham. If it’s all about money Premiere Radio and other syndicators will have to cut rates or stations are going to trend towards locally created content.
Beck has a bit of history with Philadelphia. When he started radio syndication, he had moved to Philadelphia to be near his ex-wife and their child. He is not at all fond of the city. For a while after Glenn got the CNN job, he and Stu were commuting every day from Philadelphia to New York.
Tom Taylor thinks that Premiere was actually paying WOR, but it is just a hunch. He knows the radio business well, so it is likely he’s right.
Up and running fine, very strong. Almost immediate actuation. Yeoman’s work again, Art. Thank you.
Haha… except I just noticed I called it a “steam”.
It’s the spell checker’s fault, I tell you!