Glenn Beck.....contract up in December at Fox....mulling starting a new cable network....taking over one....Fox has no comment....Glenn won't be specific because he loves his nightly hour of power.....In case you are wondering, the "....." are when I am so overcome by laughter that I can't type....What would we name it?
BSNBC.....BS Now Beck Controlled?
ABC....All Beck Comedy....its endless
I seriously have a source who works there and she says its true and that he has the money and support to do it. Therein is the rub. That he has the support to do this - that means financial support both in wealth to make the move and in potential sponsors to support the network for make no mistake you can have the best content going and if sponsors don't buy into the programming then its a dead end. It is numbers first and foremost. Sponsors buy ads in programs based on numbers. Say Beck has a million viewers a night for round numbers. His audience is something of a special case, very homogeneous in makeup...male, older, conservative obviously, but probably a lot of very measurable demographic traits. So with this kinda "pure" and homogenized audience lets just suppose his advertising cost is $50/thousand (CPM = Cost per Thousand). With a million viewers or 1000 x's 1000 a commercial on Beck would be $50 x's 1000 or $50,000. In one hour, a Beck show will air at the very least 6 commercial breaks (pods) consisting of 6 or so commercials each (peas in the pods)...36 commercial slots. If these were all sold at the given CPM, each show might make $18 million dollars. Think of that.
So Beck goes off to start his own cable network and bam his history doesn't count. No one cares that a million people watched him on Faux Noise because a significant number of his viewers lost the remote clicker in the sofa cushions anyway and can't change the channel and won't follow him to channel 451 on the cable box. More fun awaits however.
When Arts and Entertainment started out they had 4 hour blocks of programming and there were 2 of them repeated three times during the day to make the 24 hour broadcast day. They were called "mirrors". Unlike now, the lineup was so strong and they carved out such a desired audience they could get away with repeats. In short, there was always a good show on A&E and it was a smart lineup with no low points. (all this is of course 'once upon a time'). You would buy, as an advertiser, one of these "mirrors" and it pretty much didn't matter what show you landed in as there were few highs and lows.
HGTV, on the other hand, started off great with a huge selection of 1/2 hour home do it yourself and how to do it shows...all with production costs and endless efforts to stay fresh...that lasted until advertising got tight and now we have an endless selection of 1 hour shows about buying a home and getting one ready to sell...vastly different and with quality bumps and hills and valleys and very little smooth rides. You have to pick and choose or you get a lemon and no lemonade.
When Beck starts up this folly he will be the one bright spot (not bright but perhaps not as dumb....well you get my point) and the rest of the time he will have to fill in otherwise it will be a $50cpm for his show and 20 other hours of broadcast that he can't give away. If you noted it or noticed it, Ophra didn't launch the "O" network on time because, for the most part, it was hard to build a lineup to surround her..harder than she thought.
So back to Glenn and his dream network. This has all the aspects of a money pit - a sailboat of sorts - a credit card with an anchor attached - and I do wish him well.
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