WILL THE BUSH REGIME HAVE A JOB FOR GLENN BECK?

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey

My financial advisor was over today and we were going through my portfolio, especially focusing in on the "garbage that needs to be cleaned up," as she always so insensitively puts it. One big stack of "garbage" are the shares of TimeWarner I was forced to take in lieu of salary. When I was taking them they were rated at around $90/share. Today they closed higher than they've been in years-- $21.55/share. My losses on TimeWarner are greater than my overall net worth. I'm not looking for sympathy; I'm as happy as a clam. I did ask her how a big name company with so many big name assets could suck so bad. "Howie, you know the answer to that one better than most people do." And I do.

And one example-- one of many, many, many-- surfaced today: Glenn Beck's ratings on CNN. As TimeWarner-owned CNN attempts to follow Fox News down the toilet, there doesn't seem to be any bottom to Beck's ratings.

These are the numbers are for the 7pm hour. The first number is the 25-54 demographic, the second number is the total number of viewers.

Monday - 44,000 / 211,000
Tuesday - 141,000 / 302,000
Wednesday - 73,000 / 172,000
Thursday - 62,000 / 192,000
Friday - 43,000 / 123,000

Beck is a loser-- every other show beats his-- and it's not like he's on there for prestige like a tour of a museum or an orchestra performance. "A year ago, Glenn Beck was heralded as some sort of new talk show host that would revolutionize cable news. Instead, he is another in a long line of right wing radio talk show hosts who has failed in television. In fact, Glenn Beck's numbers for this week were LOWER then a year ago when he was just starting. A year's worth of programming, advertising, and everything else that CNN and Headline News has done to push Glenn Beck has not made a bit of difference. Beck's numbers are the lowest in cable news, and he shows no signs of improving any time soon. My question is how long will Headline News, CNN, and Time Warner continue to put up with Beck's low numbers?"

I begged my financial advisor not to make me sell my TimeWarner shares; it's the masochist in me. I like to revel in my bad decisions. But looking at Beck's numbers just now and thinking about the kind of management-- including one of the highest paid CEOs in America-- that makes these kinds of decisions, is making me reconsider.