Farmers Insurance pulls Beck ads; What about radio?

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Some 20 companies have agreed to pull ads from Glenn Beck’s television show, within weeks of the Fox host calling Obama “a racist” and saying the president “has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” Now, Farmers Insurance can be added to that list, a Farmers spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO.


“We advertise on Fox News Channel, which places our ads in the Network programming, and we ceased placing on Glenn Beck a week ago,” said
the spokesperson.

Just because advertisers pull ads from Beck’s show doesn’t mean the network will lose any money.

A Fox News spokesperson told the Daily News that “advertisers referenced have all moved their spots from Beck to other programs on the network so there has been no revenue lost.”

What about Beck’s radio show? Have advertisers pulled there as well? Speaking to media buyers off the record, the thoughts were as follows: “Anytime there’s an issue like this with a personality, it affects everything, across the board. If a letter is sent to a client or there is any kind of heat about a personality and they think the client was in the show, then the client pulls out all the stops to try to say ‘We don’t advertise in that show.’ It doesn’t matter to these people who write in—whether it’s TV or radio.”

“I wonder how a personality can do this stuff. I do not understand how they could do this, because if they understand they are not just speaking for themselves, but they are representing the advertisers who support their show. It works both ways. They have to understand that they are representing those clients. The other way is that the boycotters say, ‘You’re aligned with Glenn Beck.’ It should be working the other way around. He should be aligned with us and not doing anything to harm us.”

“What concerns me is that they are doing the entire industry a disservice. It snowballs into folks like Beck—in TV, radio, it doesn’t matter. Who else is going to say this? Who else may be saying these things? Who else do we need to avoid? They forget this is a business and you need ad support. You want to be entertaining, but you don’t want to lose the advertisers. It’s just not smart. And when we pull out, we stay out. Because it could happen again.”

RBR/TVBR observation: Part of what happens to the mega-hosts is they get so famous, so beloved by their fans, that their ratings skyrocket. Their egos get a bit too big and delusions of grandeur set in. But we have all seen how quickly a huge host can be brought down a few big notches with a slip of the tongue.