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| Glenn Beck |
At the theater he runs through images that will appear on one of three projectors behind him. There’s David Sarnoff (the NBC founder), Philo Farnsworth (the early television pioneer) and someone Beck can’t quite place but, he assures the handful of staffers dancing around him, will remember by the time the curtain goes up. “Does anyone know how many minutes of high-def TV equal one gigabyte?” Onstage Beck paces like a comic Hamlet, eyes bulging every time he figures out how to weave the props (stalks of corn, a chalkboard, a cockatoo he rented for $750 a night) he has ordered into the monologue.
He could rattle off the overarching themes in a deep sleep. He starts with the construction of the Manhattan skyline, using replicas of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building as visual aids. Then he moves on to the birth of radio and TV. Theme: thinking big, creating the American dream. He will work in several plugs for tonight’s featured offering, a Web subscription service called Insider Extreme ($75 a year for behind-the-scenes footage, a fourth hour of his radio show, ten-minute history lessons and so on). “I can multitask like crazy,” says Beck. “I’m riddled with ADD–a blessing and a curse.”
From Wikipedia
Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is a politically conservative American television and radio host, political commentator, author, television network producer, media personality, and entrepreneur. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books. Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for Fox News Channel and Fox News' digital properties". Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter named Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list.
Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending traditional American values, while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.
Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He currently has his hour long afternoon show, The Glenn Beck Program on weekdays, and his three hour morning radio show broadcast on the network.
Political and historical
"The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style – the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country – is aflame again, fanned from both right and left ... No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right."
– David Von Drehle, Time Magazine, 2009
An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government activist,[127] Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is recommended by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.
Radio
In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage.In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. As of July 2013, Glenn Beck was tied for number four in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television
In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights. CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted Glenn Beck, beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin[58] He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call". As of September 2009 Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
His show's high ratings did not come without controversy. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and their journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization.[56] Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet television channel.
Glenn Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and a new two-hour show began his television network which started as a subscription-based internet TV network, TheBlaze TV, originally called GBTV, on September 12, 2011. Using a subscription model, it was estimated Beck is on track to generate $27 million in his first year of operation. This was later upgraded to $40 million by The Wall Street Journal when subscriptions topped 300,000. On September 12, 2012, TheBlaze TV announced that the Dish Network would begin carrying TheBlaze TV.
Philanthropy
In 2011, Beck founded the non-profit organization Mercury One, designed to sustain itself through its entrepreneurship and without grants or donations. In early 2011, Beck began work toward developing a clothing line to be sold to benefit the charity and October 2011, Mercury One began selling the upscale clothing line labeled 1791 exclusively at its website, 1791.com. The clothing in the line's eleven-piece inaugural offering was manufactured by American Mojo of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Restoring Honor rally
The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally – which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism – was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.
Books
"You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense."
– Glenn Beck, Common Sense, 2009
Beck has reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories as of 2010: Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction,and Children's Picture Books.
Selected Non-fiction:
- The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland. Simon and Schuster. 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-9696-4.[77]
- An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems. Simon and Schuster. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8.
- America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades. 2008. (Audiobook).
- An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). ISBN 978-1-59038-944-7.
- America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades, Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-7435-9854-5.
- Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8.[78][79]
- Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4.
- Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1-4423-3396-0.
- Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure, Simon & Schuster 2010. ISBN 1-4423-3457-6.[80]
- The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1-4516-2551-6.
- The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century, with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1-4516-5061-7.
- Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, As You've Never Seen Him. Simon and Schuster. 2011. ISBN 978-1-4516-5931-3.
- Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say. Simon and Schuster. 2012. ISBN 978-1-4516-9347-8.
et al (2013). Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America. Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1476764740.
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