Glenn Beck and the Long TV Game
I have two words to add to this: Glenn Beck. Glenn, as we know, left Fox News a while back to start his own online subscription network GBTV. Though from all appearances, GBTV is doing great — it’s already got a full line of informative and entertaining shows, including Beck’s — there’s little doubt that the Beckian sphere of influence has decreased with the change. As with Howard Stern, when he left free radio to go to satellite, Beck’s opinions used to be water cooler fodder every day but now, addressing his many subscribers, he’s preaching to the choir essentially and is out of the mainstream.
However, I’ve maintained from the start of GBTV (for which I worked briefly and happily), that Glenn is playing a long game. Let’s wait one or two more years until every TV offers GBTV as simply another one of various broadcast, streaming, cable and satellite channels. If you can choose with a touch of the remote between Real News from smart and beautiful PJTV alumnus alumna Amy Holmes, or Fake News from CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS, which will you take? Beck’s a sharp dude, and has been ahead of the curve again and again. I think he could well re-emerge as a major mainstream force in the not very distant future. This would not only be good in itself, but would represent a major victory for the good guys.
Barack Obama is going to have a lot of help from our network Pravdas in this election. But if we can beat them here, I think we’ll have scored a long term victory. TV is going through a revolution. When choice wins, liars lose.
What does “huzzah” mean? Also, I must add that the modern day tv-viewer has felt that there wasn’t much in the way of choices when it comes to viewing entertainment, despite the fact that us slightly older viewers have a past to compare with it. And we remember how limited we thought we had it while our parents kept telling us how much worse it used to be.
Mostly, it’s about convenience. When choosing between truth (few channels) or leftist propaganda (many channels) most people would choose truth anyway. But then comes Pilate’s famous question of ‘what is truth?’ People know it instinctively if nothing else and that is shown by ratings. The real answer is just to make it more convenient for people view.
I’m all over the place with this comment, so I’ll just leave it at that. God Bless!
Huzzah is ye olde form of hurrah.
Hip, hip huzzah! (done three times in a row.)
Definitely media is changing. The only things I watch on network tv are The Simpsons and SNL. Can’t remember the last time I watched the evening news.
Huzzahs are better than harrumphs, IMHO.
No beefs with content, Andrew, except that “smart and beautiful PJTV alumnus Amy Holmes” is actually “smart and beautiful PJTV alumna Amy Holmes”. Let’s not confuse things.
Cheers to all.
Actually Glenn is still on free radio everyday during the week and in some markets on the weekends with repeats. He has something that Stern doesn’t.
Credibility
The only part about the whole GBTV thing that puts me off from subscribing at this time is a lack of coherence. And I refuse to pay for the two clowns that he runs his radio show with. Stu I can take because he is mostly smooth and quick with his funny injections. The other guy is that guy who goes overboard and doesn’t know when to STOP. Don’t be that guy.
Andrew–did you know that the late comedian George Jessel was thrown off the Today show in 1971 for repeatedly calling the New York Times “Pravda?” By Edwin Newman, no less.
So that’s what happened to Glenn Beck! I thought maybe he’d retired or gotten sick or been disappeared by his network.