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.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/jeffbercovici\/2012\/09\/12\/glenn-beck-and-dish-network-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pay-tv-tyranny\/<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Glenn Beck is more interested in exposure than money, although he understands more money = more talented staff = better programming = more subscribers.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading