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HAS GLENN BECK PEAKED?

Howard Stern is compelling content. Rush Limbaugh is compelling content. Glenn Beck is compelling content. Bubba The Love Sponge is compelling content. Monsters of the Morning are Compelling. Same goes for John and Ken. /color]

One man's music is another's noise. What makes compelling radio for one person makes for boring radio for someone else. None of the above are compelling radio for my ear. Yet, I find All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Talk of the Nation, Radio Times, Fresh Air, A Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk, all on NPR as compelling radio. I also find listening to the Lutheran Hour each week as compelling radio (talk about a person who can put a message across - Pastor Ken Klaus could have been a millionaire, if he'd chosen radio as a "secular" vocation - his show is heard weekly on over 800 radio stations nationwide and the Armed Forces Radio Network.) My point is, different strokes for different folks. Many who live to hear Rush each day would never tune in to Stern or Bubba, or NPR, or the Lutheran Hour. Yet, all of the shows you mention and I mentioned are very successful. So as with beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so is compelling radio.
 
I like quite a few of the shows on NPR (Car Talk especially), but also like Mark Levin and while not a big Rush fan, I understand how good he is at what he does. I mean the guy is DEAF and still does radio. That takes skill, and not to mention a lot of technology. I'd really like to see how he really does it. But I just appreciate good radio more than any particular host. Someone who knows what he's doing behind a mic is a great thing, no matter what it is he's talking about.
 
I'd agree. I forgot Rush still has hearing problems? Is he completely deaf? If so, when Bo Snerdly talks to him does it come up on his computer screen as closed captioned or can he still hear him well enough in his headset? Rush's show isn't as tight as it was prior to his hearing loss (which of course is understandable and yes, he should be given credit for being able to work around his handicap and be able to continue working and maintaining his ratings, etc, as a deaf person in a medium that is purely based on sound- kind of like Beethoven composing and directing symphonies after he was deaf).

Even though I don't agree with Rush on many things he manages to pull off a fairly well produced show (his parodies are enjoyable to be sure, my favorites were the Clinton's back when Bill was President - of course that was like shooting fish in a barrel. Also Hillary singing " All I Want is to Rule the World", the Obama parodies, and the others they do all have an element of humor - how many conservatives appreciated the humor in Tina Fey's parodies of Sarah Palin - sort of like Clinton, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, and are funny like the Clinton spoofs on Rush were).

I wonder if any commercial radio network /syndicator has tried to steal Car Talk from NPR and make it a commercial radio hit. I guess NPR has enough contracts, etc, to keep that from happening. It's got to be NPR's most popular show. I know many conservatives, that wouldn't ever listen to NPR any other time, but never miss a week of Click and Clack the Tap It Brothers each Saturday. Those guys are simply hilarious and that's one thing both libs and conservatives have in common, everyone enjoys a good laugh.
 
you can personally not like those shows but when programming to a mass audience, enough people do like those programs in order for a station to become commercially viable. Now, all of the NPR shows you bring up are great too! But for now I am leaving the non-com out of the equation.
 
MikefromDelaware said:
I'd agree. I forgot Rush still has hearing problems? Is he completely deaf? If so, when Bo Snerdly talks to him does it come up on his computer screen as closed captioned or can he still hear him well enough in his headset? Rush's show isn't as tight as it was prior to his hearing loss (which of course is understandable and yes, he should be given credit for being able to work around his handicap and be able to continue working and maintaining his ratings, etc, as a deaf person in a medium that is purely based on sound- kind of like Beethoven composing and directing symphonies after he was deaf).
Click to expand...

I think someone transcribes the calls. He has cochlear implants but that only allows him to hear basic things. I know that he has to watch TV with captioning on, and vaguely remember him mentioning that the calls get transcribed. I also remember when he first came back from that whole deal, his voice sounded different. I don't k now if it was the processing or what, but he sounds normal again now. I'd be willing to bet that he had to have speech therapy. That can't be easy for a guy with an ego that big to do. Like him or not, you gotta respect what he's done and continues to do in the industry. He very well could have just quit two or three times, and gone out on top and still been insanely rich. Instead he's still there almost every day doing his thing.
 
Don:

I seem to remember hearing Rush sound slurred before the implant was installed. Once it was installed, it seemed his speech improved greatly.

I've heard many different versions of how well these work. If he does have transcription, it must be uniquely fast, because he maintains normal conversation cadence.

I may not agree with all his positions. I may think he throws gasoline on fires. But he is a great talent.
 
"...remember hearing Rush sound slurred before the implant was installed."

del_griffith said:
Once it was installed, it seemed his speech improved greatly.
Click to expand...

His lisp is MUCH-less-pronounced too.
Rush is (was) a "tongue-thruster."
 
The last time I landed on Glenn Beck's Show (by mistake...I hit the wrong preset on my XM receiver) I heard him almost crying about something and whining. I don't listen to any of them on either side. I listen to The Power Hour, The Alex Jones Show and The Rollye James Show. We need a Conspiracy Channel but then that would require somebody at XM who was alive and using their brain to program the talk channels.
 
Last week I heard Beck was giving away his 'Insider Extreme' feed for free (to try and drum up new business I suppose) so I checked it out. Beck and his crew put on a good show. It's tight, well produced and I was blown away by the first class video elements that they had. Not sure if he has peaked (I tend to think not...for my money I think Hannity has peaked) but I think he is developing a strong brand.
 
Signal_Faded said:
Last week I heard Beck was giving away his 'Insider Extreme' feed for free (to try and drum up new business I suppose) so I checked it out. Beck and his crew put on a good show. It's tight, well produced and I was blown away by the first class video elements that they had. Not sure if he has peaked (I tend to think not...for my money I think Hannity has peaked) but I think he is developing a strong brand.
Click to expand...

Glenn Beck is a master showman, there's no disputing that. The guy just has a knack for drama and putting things in emotional terms that his audience Identifies with. I think on that level, he's even better than Rush. Rush is an ego driven personality, that doesn't need the audience to do his show. Beck engages his audience much better, even on TV. What remains to be seen, of course, is how long he can keep it up. The "end of the world" bit can only go on for so long before people realize that it's not really the end of the world. That's one thing Rush has done so well for so long. Even in good times, he can find issues that are important without over-dramatizing them. I'm not sure Beck can do that. He may be more of a sign of the times than anything.
 
Beck is simply the 2010 version of Chuck Harder. The differences are:

Beck is syndicated by a major syndicator and is being cleared on that syndicators inhouse legitimate signals. Harder was always second tier.

Beck hasn't crossed into bringing in people like Eustace Mullins that can blow up on him. Will that happen? Who knows.

Otherwise, they they are pretty close to being the same.
 
Chuck Harder?

I haven't heard that name in at least a couple years.

I heard he's off the air for good, having hung up his mike in the past six months or so. But I've noticed over the years that - to put it in Chuck's verbiage - "rumors of his demise are greatly over-exaggerated." His TalkStar Web site is still up, but I can't pick up his streaming audio, b/c I have a Mac instead of a PC. (Thanks, Bill Gates!)

On the Web, when I go to his site, his survival gadget online store comes up; one link on the site brings up an ad for an AM station near Tampa, FL that he's trying to sell (the CP for that station, anyway).

Re Beck, heard him today on Fox News as he was taking a whack at "globalists." Unlike Chuck, though, Beck stayed away from David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and so on ... Chuck's favorite punching bags, as it were.

Another name I haven't heard in a while: Eustace Mullins. Ugh! I have an electronic copy of his horrible 55-page screen "The Biological Jew" (yes, I'm one of those ;D), and it's a wonder we didn't nab him during the Nuremberg trials in the 1940's in occupied Germany. Oh well ... he passed away this past February. Good riddance!
 
Glenn just focuses on big banking and wall street and stays away from the labels of CFR/Tri-lateral stuff. Not sure why.
 
del_griffith said:
Glenn just focuses on big banking and wall street and stays away from the labels of CFR/Tri-lateral stuff. Not sure why.
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Probably because The Government has faces, and the CFR/Tri-lats/etc. don't.
Hard to picture "CFR" easier to picture "Eric Holder" in the theater of the mind.
 
I don't think the CFR or the Tri-Lateral Commission hold the same fear to the masses today that they did when Hard Luck Charlie was in his heyday.

Glenn still calls out bankers, big business and globalists. Which essentially is among the folks in the CFR or Tri-Lateral camp. My guess is CFR doesn't strike the same fear as it once did.

Same demon. Different words to demonize.
 
I kind of disagree with the observation that Glenn Beck is a latter-day Chuck Harder.

Would Beck put out this kind of stuff:

“While the ‘Archie Bunker themesong’ titled, ‘Those were the days” echoes in my ears. ‘Guys like us, we had it made…’ I suppose he was referring to yesterdays factory worker. The deal after W.W.II was this simple: If you were a guy – you married your sweetheart and bought a house with a 30 year mortgage. You and your wife raised the kids, you went to work and the wife stayed home. 30 years later the house was paid for and you had Social Security and a decent pension. It was ‘The American Dream’ and was a silent agreement between the rich elites knows by some as the ‘Swells’ and the ‘Little People’ who had gone off to war as cannon-fodder to protect the bankers and politrixters... ”

This is from Chuck's book, "Will We Ever Learn," page 9. You can get it on Amazon, BTW.

I recall my English and humanities classes in high school and college, and I know that had I turned in this kind of dreck, I'd be humiliated - along with my parents (can you say "grounded for two weeks"?). Yes, I went to some pretty good schools, but be that as it may, you have to admit that Chuck's abilities in the verbal world were sorely lacking, using whatever standard you wish to employ. Unlike Beck, whose books are doing rather well.

I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck, but I was much, much less of a fan of Chuck Harder. His illiteracy and boorishness were unbearable. He sounded great on the radio - he had a beautiful voice more suited to singing rather than talking - but beyond that, there wasn't much. I suspect that Chuck was pretty heavily "lawyered up" before he went on the air, and even after that, he managed to stick his foot in his mouth repeatedly, especially when he compared himself to David Duke.

In print, he was worse. He claimed there was something called "Jewish greed," and said that Wall Street was controlled by "Greenbergs and Sheinbergs. He once agreed with a caller that claimed that FDR was a "secret Jew," and that Pearl Harbor was a Jewish plot to get the U.S. involved in World War II.

I guess you could call Chuck Harder "Eustace Mullins with a great voice."

"Hard Luck Charlie," indeed.
 
The comparison between Glenn Beck and Chuck Harder doesn't hold water for many reasons.

(And yes, we had a "For the People" affiliate locally, a small AM down in Canton now doing Catholic radio with a larger signal. To this day, the words "For the People" and mention of Mr. Harder mean I can't get that lousy theme song out of my head!)
 
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