Brian Stelter
Media Decoder
The New York Times
2/25/2013
Glenn Beck is beginning a campaign to get his Internet channel, TheBlaze, onto cable and satellite television systems across the country, and the one system that already carries the channel, Dish Network, is backing him up.
The campaign will begin on Monday when Mr. Beck starts promoting GetTheBlaze.com, a Web site that asks fans to contact their television provider and request the channel. He will talk about the site on his nationally syndicated radio show and link to it on his social networking Web sites…
…Twenty months ago Mr. Beck left Fox and started GBTV, the subscriber-only Internet channel that he later renamed TheBlaze. Within a year he had 300,000 subscribers, no small feat for any Web site. But by then he’d also decided he wanted to get back on old-fashioned TV. In September 2012 Mr. Beck announced a carriage deal with Dish, the first of what his company hoped would be many such deals. Simply stated, the economics of television are better — TV channels get small per-subscriber fees, whether or not the subscribers ever watch, and the advertising possibilities are enormous.
Dish has a period of exclusivity with TheBlaze, so no other cable or satellite system can carry the channel quite yet. The companies haven’t disclosed how long this period lasts, but it is probably ending soon, because TheBlaze is starting its campaign now…
…“If we succeed then we change the media. If we change the media, we control the debate. If we control the debate, we change politics. And if we change politics, we change the country,” he wrote.
TheBlaze has more than 40 hours of programming a week, including simulcasts of Mr. Beck’s radio show, a nightly show of his just for the channel, a nightly panel conversation about the news, and a couple of documentaries and reality shows. In January Mr. Beck described ambitious plans for the channel, involving more news reporting (“We are currently looking for our own Woodwards and Bernsteins,” he said) and a libertarian bent. “I consider myself a libertarian,” Mr. Beck said.
The complete article is at The New York Times.
