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Tuesday, August 25, 2009 | 7:45am
33 Advertisers Pull Spots from Glenn Beck’s Show Following Obama ‘Racist’ remarks
Despite posting top ratings, Corporate America jumps ship from the controversial Fox Conservative program
At the risk of sounding slightly hypocritical I was happy late Monday when I found out that 33 corporate advertisers jumped ship from Glenn Beck‘s show on the Fox News Channel in response to his calling President Barack Obama a racist.
On July 28 Beck was a guest on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” morning show when he referred to Obama as a racist with “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” The network felt Beck’s comments were so left field the station’s senior vice president of programming distanced the network from his comments and quickly offered an apology. Since then Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint and others have either pulled their commercials from Beck’s show or from the channel entirely.
Following the controversy Clorox has pulled its advertising entirely from ALL political talk shows stating,
“we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts.”
The advertising exodus which took place during Beck’s vacation last week happened despite the show posting its biggest ratings ever the week previous, averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.
While Beck’s statements may have been inappropriate, his boost in ratings proves there’s a marketplace for such opinions and dare I say hate. Though advertisers like Clorox may be spooked by the risk of being associated with such controversial programing the opinions of Beck and his Fox conservative colleagues like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly draw in big ratings on their network.
ColorofChange.org a lobby group that promotes political action among blacks quickly launched a campaign to put pressure on current advertisers to see beck as a corporate liability and “strongly” encourage them to withdraw sponsorship. “They have a toxic asset,” said James Rucker, the organization’s executive director said referring to FOX. “They can either clean it up or get rid of it.”
While other activist have called for Beck’s firing in the same vain as Don Imus from CBS Radio/ MSNBC, Beck’s strong rating profile despite his 5 p.m. time slot makes that very unlikely. Beck and his strong conservative programming have been known to outdraw CNN and MSNBC programming airing in prime time.
While Beck is certainly an asset to FOX the debate rages as to what type. Clearly his rhetoric is welcomed by his loyal conservative following but the more he feeds them with controversy the more of a target he becomes by activist. While I clearly won’t shed a tear for Beck, the FOX News brass is going to have to act fast because the male enhancement pill company and asbestos victim law firm ads that are currently airing on Beck’s programming aren’t a good look for a show of his caliber.
FILED IN Business & Marketing, News, TV
F**K Beck and F*X! I view their ilk in somewhat the same light as these “lobbyist” groups: necessary evils in order to have checks and balances. I still despise them, however. So, it is ironic that one is taking out the other… oh, and male enhancement pills is perhaps what Beck’s viewers need, since scientists haven’t made a decency pill yet!
22 of those 33 companies have explicitly denied that they pulled advertising from Mr. Beck’s show. Many of them never advertised on his show in the 1st place. Others of them did pull advertising, but they pulled their ads from *all* opinion shows, not just Beck.
This has been known since early last week. You might wanna do a bit more research before regurgitating talking points.
If you noticed JC I actually mentioned that in my post but perhaps you were to anxious to regurgitate yours to notice.
Fox News has taken up the mantle as the official voice of the Republican Party. It started under Clinton, solidified under Bush, and they are now the “opposition press” under Obama.
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There are more than a few problems with the arrangement as it now exists, which include:
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1. We have the tail wagging the dog. Instead of the party making decisions and the network towing the line, the NETWORK is determining the party platform. They do this by picking who will and will not appear on their network, and only promoting the agenda they agree with. In essence, they are icing out opposition within the Republican Party, leaving only those who are like-minded.
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2. They are entirely indifferent to the truth. What started out as a comical and clumsy bias (like they way they always identify scandalized politicians as democrats) has turned into a dangerous and uncontrollable beast.
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Consider this: The network has openly promoted the notion that Obama is a communist, a racist, a foreigner, a middle-eastern sleeper agent, a Muslim sleeper-agent, and a drug dealer.
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3. They have demonstrated their ability to manipulate a psychological concept known as group-memory, and have, on multiple occasions, used this ability to rile angry crowds.
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But more than that, I’m bothered by one more thing…
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4. They have demonstrated institutional racism within their network. If Beck were an isolated incident, promptly punished, rounded off by a press conference with Captain African-American, then that would be one thing.
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But it’s not an isolated incident. It has happened over and over again. How many times can things like this happen before we have to conclude that the behavior, (while not openly sanctioned), is certainly tolerated.
As ususual, excellent points, Malcolm. I have expressed similar views in the past, but you are the only person that I’ve read who spelled it out so clearly.
Yeah and coming from a white Republican its more based in fact. I think your point number one hits home. The GOP has allowed the network to totally run its platform and in doing so has moved them too far to the radical conservative side. Great points Malcolm.
JC v. Juan?
No sweat. Got your back, Juan!
I only watch fox to see what Satan is up to.. Especially Beck and Hannity. Those advertisers will fall back for a few months, but they’ll be back. It’s all about the dollars..
When you run with the likes of Rev. Wright what do you expect people to think? You can YouTube Rev. Wright and come to the conclusion he does not like white people or America. Fact is people judge you by the company you keep.
Lets also not forget what people had to say about Pres. Bush. When you the Pres. thats just how it goes.