For several years I’ve been pushing the idea that Glenn Beck’s future was not on radio, where he can be constrained by FCC threats, politically motivated boycotts and meddling station management.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/09/12/glenn-beck-and-dish-network-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pay-tv-tyranny/
Glenn Beck is blazing a new path with his deal the DishTV – bypassing even the Cable TV companies. According to Forbes, GBTV now has 300,000 paying subscribers at $9.95 a month, which works out to about $40 million/year in gross revenue just from the subscription fee.
The arrival of Jay Severin signals that Glenn Beck is going to build a network that will outlive Glenn Beck. It has always saddened me that Rush Limbaugh’s EIB network is just a brand on a coffee mug and golf shirts.
Forbes suggests they are terrified of the threat from Beck – that people in large numbers would pay a subscription fee for individual programming channels and bypass them. If DishTV starts pulling in new subscribers because if GBTV or people switch from DirecTV, the cable companies have some really hard decisions to make.
Glenn Beck is more interested in exposure than money, although he understands more money = more talented staff = better programming = more subscribers.
When I tuned in to Jay Severin, his show was full of high quality callers, despite no advance publicity that I know of. Like it or not, TV is where the people are. I wonder who Beck will hire next?
But to give credit where credit is due, Beck is traveling down a path that was blazed in 2006, when Howard Stern proved that a personality with talent could generate hundreds of millions in revenue for Sirius by leaving “radio” behind and going to a subscription based business model.
Limbaugh is a team of one, a shame. One hell of a team though. He is well into the back nine not the point to re-brand and attempt to created a Lawrence Welk-ian radio stable.
Your point about Severin’s show is what has driven me away from non-Rush shows: poor call screening. I wouldn’t mind if Rush didn’t take any calls at all, I can’t say that about anyone else on the air.
I subscribed to Beck’s Blaze TV for 99.95 a year as a donation. Running my business makes a movie or television basically impossible. I don’t have the luxury of doing nothing for an hour or two and stare at the computer screen.
I am skeptical about any publicly released financial data from the entertainment industry – but I have always been curious of the whole Stern / Sirius deal. I guess the renewal of his contract tells me that both parties are satisfied with the results.
Finally, Beck’s greatest contribution may be to reintroduce to enough good people that the battle between Good and evil is real, is present and is an individual responsibility. The country was never meant to come to a stop for the noon Angelus, however, we have allowed real evil into the classes and into the courts, into our lives. There is no time like the present to elevate standards and reclaim our position as beings created in the image of God.
well, maybe when Dish will allow me to pick and choose only the channels I want and not shove the rest of that Tripe on me, I may partake.
Wonder where the Beck farm is ? I would like a pile of cash and check out too.
parrott
Glenn Beck has a vision. He used to be just be a silly baffoon before he really got serious. The man has enough tallent and drive to become a Billionaire Media Tycoon, if there was enough time in America’s future to do so, and if would actually matter.
Glenn’s daughter just got married. Their rented SUV rolled away and crashed.
I had that happen once on me with a Toyota – this was around 1986. I didn’t realize that the Toyota did not have the same transmission interlock as cars I was used to. It had the key on the dashboard but the transmission on the console in the middle – no interlock, no warning alarm. I pulled into a motel parking lot in North Dakota. When I left the office with my key, no car and no engine noise. My car was sitting sideways right in the middle of the 4 lane highway, having been left in gear and the parking lot had a very slight grade. Nobody hurt, no damage, no police wanting to give me a ticket – but lesson learned.