A Brave New World And Glenn Beck

Forget Beck’s off-the-wall TV theatrics. What he’s doing here is bold and innovative.

Glenn Beck is leaving Fox News Channel (not connected to FoxCT… have I mentioned that?). Instead of moving to another network he is starting his own. Beck won’t be on cable. He will broadcast on the Internet via GBTV.

Wall Street Journal: GBTV, an online-only channel, is available to subscribers for $4.95 or $9.95 a month, depending on the package, similar to the model for premium cable-television channels such as HBO or Showtime.

In addition to Mr. Beck’s new show, GBTV will also stream a six-camera simulcast of his three-hour radio show and a behind-the-scenes show about the making of the new network.

Forget Beck’s off-the-wall TV theatrics. What he’s doing here is bold and innovative. If successful he’ll have eliminated a string of middlemen and changed the future of TV… or maybe just killed TV!

In 2011 TV stations and networks make a big difference. A great show on a thinly watched channel will probably also be thinly viewed. Sad, but true.

Are viewers organized enough to find every show ala carte without having a station to act as “the mall?”

Will Beck make more money and have less power? That’s my read on what’s happened to Howard Stern since his jump to satellite.

It’s a brave new world and Beck is ballsy enough to take the first step. This is a move worth watching.

14 thoughts on “A Brave New World And Glenn Beck”

  1. Geoff,

    You’re right, its definitly the next big idea (or flop). We don’t have to go back more than 2-3 years though to see how far we’ve come. Look at Hulu – giving you reruns and original runs of cable episodes you haven’t seen before. Plus alof of stuff I’ve never heard of and I’m not sure if anyone else has watched either. But there’s the second technology – since the Blair Witch Project, people producing their own movies, episodes and informative or documentary YouTube channels.

    There’s aggregate websites that guide you towards the most relevant news blogs (CTCapitolReport, and others). That’s the retail end. Behind the scenes are advertising groups to provide a revenue stream for those websites.

  2. He has a good chance. Alex Jones has been doing this for some years now and he pulls in an audience of over 20 million a week and that is just an estimate.

  3. I like FNC news. Beck? if you bought all that he said you’d be hunkered down in a bomb shelter with a deer rifle and a 10 year supply of Oreos. For all that, he brought up interesting questions on Van Jones among others. I think you are right about the trading in influence for money. I can’t remember the last Howard Stern controversy

  4. I think (and certainly hope) he will fail. Those who watched him saw him as part of a larger pool of infotainment (not news certainly!) offered by “FNC”. Very few actually buy into his brand of fundamentalist/mormon/mental illness fueled paranoia. Creating a channel based solely on his misugas is a formula for failure.

    I look forward to his slow loss of following, and the inevitable demise of GBTV. Certainly, convergence is upon us, and Television is being challenged by all the other delivery options out there. But no matter how the content is delivered, the content itself still has to be compelling and viable. A self-rightous, pompous fool is not enough to make a financially viable subscription web-channel.

  5. In spite of what that narrow-minded commenter Dennis has to say, I don’t think that Glenn Beck will fail.

    And Dennis, contrary to your narrow-minded viewpoint, the man had ratings for his show. If you have a cable show in the top 20, it means that quite a few people watch his show.

    Dennis, you’re still living in a dream world. Grow up and join the real world.

  6. G,

    Glenn Beck is not in the real world. He may not fail, but he will not have the audience that he had before for free. Many who watched Glenn Beck for FREE did so for the entertainment of watching someone who was off the wall entertainment that was not to be taken too seriously. Hence, entertainment ratings yes, reality no.

  7. I’m definatly not Glenn’s biggest fan but I don’t wish him Ill. I’ve avoided him quite well, if it wasn’t for his persona being satirised on the Daily Show I would have no idea who he was. Having said all that there is a wrath of people now going their own way, you only have to look at our own Geoff Fox to see what a powerful tool social networking and the internet can be. I just don’t think he’s chosen his time wisely. I don’t believe he’s as popular as it seems as Pamela says ‘Many who watched Glenn Beck for FREE did so for the entertainment of watching someone who was off the wall’. Here he’s going to end up spending a lot of money promoting himself and I feel for very little reward, when it comes to spending money at the moment for people there are many purchases way higher up than $4.99 or $9.99 on an internet service every month. Glenn Beck is NOT providing a must have service in my opinion, sure there will be some people but for the most part I think he’s taking a huge gamble for very little pay off, which will probably render him as one of the people you go ‘remember that guy off fox news, wonder what he’s doing now’.

  8. I wish him luck. This is America, where everyone gets a voice. If you don’t like what they ave to say, change the channel! 🙂

  9. Glenn Beck is going because of loss of sponsors. According to Fox, he still pulls the viewers, but the sponsors don’t like his POV, politics, whatever. Personally, I do not watch him anymore. He has a lot of knowledge, has turned his life around and become successful (wish I had his money) but his over the top zealot behavior has turned me off. He used to be interesting, but I think his success went to his head. Sad commentary of the times.

  10. I used to like Glenn Beck. He was very informative and dared to share the BS from the other party that does not get media time on the 3 Big networks. But over the past couple of years he like Rush and Hannity have gotten to far out and preachy. Kind of manic!

    Well good luck to him, amazing how the techno highway is changing everything and everyway we get our info!

  11. I cannot separate the political aspect of this from the technology/media aspect of the discussion. It’s like telling me the Devil has made a better donut and then discussing poor breakfast alternatives.

    That said, the media question is – will people pay to hear the lunatic with the sandwich board? When they can see him for free sandwiched in between the Cavuto and Baier it was one thing, but lunatics on the internet are a dime a dozen.
    Scratch that, you don’t need the dime.

  12. Geoff…. Howard WHO?? I don’t have satellite radio, don’t intend to get it, nor do I miss that (to comply with your requests to be “nice”) “twisted soul”… He’s lost in space via satellite.

Leave a Reply to Chris O'Brien Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *