Beck May Start Own Channel

The New York Times reports:

The possibility that Glenn Beck will exit the Fox News Channel at the end of the year has prompted a big question in media circles: if he leaves, how will he bring his considerable audience with him?

Two of the options Mr. Beck has contemplated, according to people who have spoken about it with him, are a partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel, or an expansion of his subscription video service on the Web.

Reports this week that Joel Cheatwood, a senior Fox News executive, would soon join Mr. Beck’s growing media company, Mercury Radio Arts, were the latest indication that Mr. Beck intended to leave Fox, a unit of the News Corporation, when his contract expired at the end of this year.

Notably, Mr. Beck’s company has been staffing up — making Web shows, some of which have little or nothing to do with Mr. Beck, and charging a monthly subscription for access to the shows.

Were Mr. Beck to set off on his own, it would be a landmark moment for the media industry, reflecting a shift in the balance of power between media institutions and the personal brands of people they employ.

Mr. Beck, a conservative who often comes under criticism for his attacks on progressives and apocalyptic predictions, hosts a syndicated radio show in the morning and a Fox News show in the afternoon.

He has a “passionate media brand with a clear point of view,” said Larry Kramer, a media consultant and the author of “C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today.” Mr. Kramer compared Mr. Beck to Arianna Huffington and Howard Stern, two people who have spun their personalities into media empires.

It is possible that Mr. Beck and Fox could agree to a new contract. But his relationship with the channel has been fraught from its earliest days in 2009, and lately both sides have been anonymously sniping at the other.

Asked on Tuesday whether Fox News intends to renew his contract, a Fox spokeswoman said, “it’s not up until December” and declined to comment further.

Mr. Beck declined an interview request about his future plans, but through a spokesman, he provided a statement. “Roger Ailes has built the most important voice in America today — Fox News — and it is an honor to do my show there every night,” he stated. “I have no intention whatsoever of doing the show I am doing now on Fox anywhere else.”

Mr. Beck has been contemplating a cable channel of his own for more than a year, according to the people who have spoken with him about it, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Beck may not be able to actively pursue such an arrangement until his Fox contract is up.

Presuming he leaves, Mr. Beck could follow a road paved by Oprah Winfrey when she started OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network in January. He could schedule his own talk show and the shows of others on one of the many cable channels seeking a ratings jolt. Or, following Martha Stewart’s road to the Hallmark Channel, he could start smaller, taking over a few hours of a channel’s schedule.

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