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Advertisers back away from talk shows
Glenn Beck on his radio show
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Kai Ryssdal: Talk show host Glenn Beck returns to the airwaves tonight on the Fox News Channel. He's been on vacation. But while he's been away, a lot of his advertisers have left him. The mass exodus stems from Beck's comment last month that President Obama is a racist. It didn't take long for protests to get started, some of which demanded companies stop buying ad time on his show. Walmart, CVS and Sprint have done just that. And others are taking it to a whole new level. They want out of the cable news talk show echo-chamber altogether. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson reports.
JEREMY HOBSON: If you've been out of the cable news loop recently, here's just a taste of what you're missing.
BILL O'REILLY: Come on you coward!
CHRIS MATTHEWS: And you're carrying a God (BLEEP) damn gun at a presidential event.
LOU DOBBS: And I have to apologize professor, but I think you're a complete idiot.
OK, maybe I cherry-picked the soundbites a little, but that's just the part of these talk shows that advertisers are afraid of. Ira Berger is director of national broadcasting with the ad firm, The Richards Group.
IRA BERGER: I think advertisers from the beginning of time are not interested in controversy, they're interested in selling their product.
And, he says, the advertisers don't lose much by backing away from the prime-time cable news shows.
BERGER: I can't think of very many clients that are that dependent on a news audience. I mean you can reach those people in other places.
Arizona State University Professor Aaron Brown knows the world of TV news well. He used to anchor a show on CNN. He says, for advertisers...
AARON BROWN: You know the only thing worse than being on a program that's controversial is being on a program that no one watches.
Brown says, traditionally, advertisers have flocked to news to get a little cache. But he says...
BROWN: We're not talking about news shows here, we're talking about talk shows, and they have never been considered to be classy.
So, what if the advertisers all pull out? Here's Dan Kennedy who teaches journalism at Northeastern.
DAN KENNEDY: Maybe they'll try news, wouldn't that be an innovation?
Nah, too obvious.
In New York, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
About the author
Jeremy Hobson is host of Marketplace Morning Report, where he looks at business news from a global perspective to prepare listeners for the day ahead. Follow Jeremy on Twitter @jeremyhobsonPages
Cable news? Whozat? I can't stand commercial TV news. I stopped watching forever with CNN's over the top hysterical coverage of 9/11.
I get all the news I need from All Things Considered, Marketplace (natch), and Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me.
Why is it that all your comments are one sided. FOX is running away with the News Business, is that a problem for them?
I noticed you did not post any ratings of Cable News Shows, FOX wins by a landslide.
Did everyone here forget what they said about Bush? Senator Franken (before running) said; "F*** Bush. Then people supported him with their money and votes.
Are the people here being a little hypocritical?
This is a good thing.
Ever since Fox decided to present the news as though it was a Pro Wrestling event, and CNN jumped on the bandwagon, I pretty stopped watching.
If enough watchers and advertisers abandon this 'Newstainment', perhaps we can get back to keeping up with what is going on in the world.
You know people like beck and rush have there own personal agenda. This is entertainment characters that there job is to keep us at the edge of our seats, i know sometimes i am one of them.These guys can say our founding fathers said that all men are created equal among other things however who are they to be quoting the founding fathers of this country when they are making millions of the dollars in the expense of our ignorance.Our founding fathers had no secret agenda,they were just human being who gain liberty through determination and still after their victory they remained humble in mind and heart.Perhaps we still have much to learn from them!Maybe if we stop pointing fingers at each other and shut up and listen to each other with our ego at the bottom of our feet,maybe just maybe God might give us the blessing on how to understand each other.
36 have quit Glenn Beck...36 companies, so far...
no small bit.
My name is Hal Hancock. If I can figure out who is advertising on Beck, I'll tell my very large extended *Christian* family that watches fox news exactly what Beck is doing and what companies to stop buying.
That's about 20 people, and some of them are influential.
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