As "the anointed leader of the almighty Tea Party movement", this is news we can celebrate.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005200004The truth about Glenn Beck's TV ratings
May 20, 2010 8:53 am ET by Eric Boehlert
snip//
And I return to my central point, which Beck refuses to acknowledge:
Since the beginning of this year Glenn Beck ratings are off by one-third. Think about that for a minute.
Think about all the magazine covers, the massive amount of media coverage and free publicity that Beck generated over the past 12 months. Think about the fact that Beck is supposed to be at the forefront -- the media point person -- for a burgeoning political, right-wing revolution that's unfolding across the country. Beck is the anointed leader of the almighty Tea Party movement. And what does he have to show for it one year later in a nation of 300 million people? About 100,000 more television viewers.Yikes.
Meanwhile, by stressing the May-to-May comparison, Beck is probably hoping people just skip over what happened rating-wise during the months in-between. And what happened was that Glenn Beck did blow up as a ratings phenomena, there's no denying that. And that Nielsen peak was reached in late January and early February when the showed averaged nearly three million viewers each night. And even for the months surrounding that, Glenn Beck routinely drew in 2.5 million viewers.
But since then? Well
since then Beck has basically lost all the new viewers he picked up over the last twelve months (blame it on the Massa Moment?), which is why in May of 2010, he's pretty much back where he started in May of 2009. After twelve months of hype, Beck has not significantly grown his TV audience.
And that fact, he just can't spin.