Vox Populi...

It startled me to learn, from a cartoon, no less, in the New York Times, this morning, that Glenn Beck is now a Has Been. I went to find out the reason for something that seems quite unbelievable—and indeed I didn’t really credit the immediate information that surfaced, namely that Glenn Beck had sort of overstepped the line, too many conspiracy theories and so on. The initial clutch of news stories Google served up for my perusal were in the same lunatic fringe Glenn Beck himself inhabits, therefore it took another precious nano-minute more before I found a source I view as sane, the Christian Science Monitor. Here I learned the credible reason for Beck’s projected bow-out—and I immediately made a graph of it for all to see. Beck’s ratings have dropped from 2.9 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2011. An audience of 1.8 million strikes me as pretty big, but broadcasting’s another world. When ratings head south, advertisers head out. Its not the content, it’s the audience—and trends in audience. The real lord of these rings is money. Well, a month ago or so someone near and dear to me started watching Glenn Beck now and then to keep up with the Bad Guys—hence I glimpsed the magician at work occasionally when sneaking some chips in the kitchen. And I should have known. When Near and Dear puts her jaundiced eye on someone like Glenn Beck, Katie bar the door.