Glenn Beck seems to be inviting a credibility battle with Media Matters over how many affiliates he has. Glenn says 430, Media Matters says “less than 400”.
Syndicators lie about affiliate counts. Constantly. I don’t even waste my time looking at their lists. You’ll find stations that never existed, stations that are listed twice, stations that switched formats, stations that are officially silent, stations that perhaps indicated interest in a show, but never actually carried it, stations that carried it for a week and were never removed from the list, etc… I haven’t yet actually looked at Beck’s list, but it would be the exception if the list is any where close to accurate.
Premiere and Westwood One specifically show their affiliates lists one state at a time, making it impossible to cross-check the list to reality unless you want to spend days on a pointless exercise. Any advertiser with a clue knows the lists and counts are not credible.
The gray area that is probably the difference in the counts has to do with definitions. Glenn’s definition is “Is heard on”. Media Matters is saying “Is carried by”.
Let’s walk down the list of “counting” and see where you think the counts matter.
1) The station carries 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and carries the show live – Rock Solid!
2) The station carries 3 hours a day, but on a delay – Everyone would count that I think
3) Station carries less than 3 hours a day, or less than 5 days a week – “heard” by not carried perhaps
4) Station carries only the “Best of Beck” show on the weekend – “heard” but definitely not “carried” in the sense most people would expect.
5) If a daytimer station (one that shuts down when the sun sets puts Beck on the schedule after the sun goes down during the winter, does that count, or only count during the summer?
6) If a legacy AM/FM simulcast pair carries Beck, is that one station or two?
7) What if an AM station has an FM Translator? Is that one station or two?
This was not the hill to bet all your marbles on.
*** It looks like the GlennBeck.com web site has removed their state by state affiliate lists.
***** Now they’ve deleted the pages
There is a search now where you enter your zip code and it shows a map of nearby affiliates… which is even more impossible to build a complete list of.
Another reason why this was really stupid is some stations may visit the web site to see if they’re listed and discover that Mercury is now offering the stream directly to the public, bypassing the radio stations.
