UPDATED: As boycott continues, Glenn Beck's audience swells

An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator's viewership has grown.

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

“FOX News' Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House,” she wrote Wednesday to her 800,000-plus supporters.

Color of Change, an African American political advocacy group, organized the boycott last month to protest Beck’s comment that he believes President Obama is a racist. The group succeeded in securing commitments from at least 36 companies that have pledged not to advertise on his show, including Wal-Mart and Sprint. Some, such as AT&T and Procter & Gamble, were not Beck advertisers to begin with, but their ads had mistakenly appeared on the program. Representatives from those companies reiterated their request not to have spots during his show. Later today, Color of Change plans to announce six more companies that also are declining to be Beck advertisers.

As a result, few major businesses remain as sponsors of Beck’s eponymous 2 p.m. PDT program. On Wednesday, the only big companies with a presence during his show were Bank of America and the Wall Street Journal, whose parent company News Corp. also owns Fox News. The rest of the commercials included spots for gold seller Rosland Capital; Ashley Furniture Home Store; Empire Carpet; Liberty Medical, a diabetes medical supplier; Johnson Law Group, an asbestos litigation firm; “Shadow Government,” a new book critical of Obama published by the National Republican Trust; and the anti-tax group TeaPartyExpress.org.

Fox News insists that the boycott has not affected its revenue, because advertisers have just moved their commercials to different time periods. And for his part, Beck appears invigorated by the challenge. “Even if the powers to be right now succeed in making me poor, drum me out … I will only be stronger for it,” he said on the air Wednesday. “And I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get this message out, on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful. Because of my faith, I know how this story ends. The truth will set you free.”

Since returning from a weeklong vacation Monday, Beck has not explicitly addressed the boycott. Instead, he has launched a weeklong series called “Reasonable Questions for an Unreasonable Time,” in which he has argued vehemently that the Obama administration is being infiltrated by radicals seeking to undermine the U.S. Constitution.

“I have demonstrated that these radicals are not only instrumental in shaping legislation that is being jammed through at light speed, they are also by invitation personally advising the president of the United States,” he said Wednesday, calling them “radical wolves that are about to devour our republic.”

One of his most frequent targets is Van Jones, special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  In 2005, Jones co-founded Color of Change with James Rucker, the group’s executive director. Beck supporters have charged that Color of Change launched the boycott of Beck's show in retaliation for the host's criticism of Jones.

Rucker said Jones has not been associated with the group for more than a year and had nothing to do with the boycott. "I didn’t even know Van had been a subject of Glenn Beck’s sustained attacks until after we had launched the campaign," he said. "I can say absolutely there was no involvement by Van or the White House. Beck has made these claims that are not fact-based and he needs to change the subject, and that’s what this is all about."

Beck began railing against Jones earlier this summer, dubbing him one of 32 “czars” with unchecked power in the Obama administration. He has repeatedly called him a communist, citing a 2005 profile of Jones in the East Bay Express that described Jones’ shift from a radical-activist past to more mainstream politics. On Wednesday, he made reference to the fact that Jones named his son after African guerrilla leader Amilcar Cabral.

“Should you have a communist, self-avowed revolutionary who named his 4-year-old son after a Marxist guerrilla leader, should that person be advising the president of the United States?” he asked.

Jones did not immediately respond to a request for comment made through the White House. Earlier in the week, White House spokeswoman Christine Glunz said in a statement that Jones has been lauded as an environmental hero and that his entire focus at the Council on Environmental Quality is on “building clean-energy incentives which create 21st century jobs.”

[Updated at 1:33 p.m.: According to Color of Change, 10 more companies that have recently had ads air during Beck's program have pledged not to run any further advertising on his show. The latest businesses to distance themselves from the Fox News host include Applebee's, Bank of America, Bell & Howell, DirecTV, General Mills, Kraft, Regions Financial Corp., SAM (Store and Move), Travelers Insurance and Vonage.

Bank of America, which had a spot on Beck's program Wednesday, pointed the group to a statement it gave Media Matters for America stating that its advertising had been placed on the program in error. Travelers Insurance, Bell & Howell, General Mills and DirectTV also told Color of Change that they had already placed Beck's program on their "do not air" lists and any commercials that appeared during his show were in error. Applebee's told the group that it was now dropping Beck's program, and Kraft said it had decided to stop advertising "on the more politically extreme programs on all networks."]

[Updated at 2:15 p.m .: According to a Fox News spokeswoman, the network has not run Bank of America ads during Beck's show, so any spot for the bank that aired during his program would have been a local cable purchase. In addition, the network said that Bell & Howell and SAM (Store and Move) were never Fox News advertisers.]

[Updated at 3 p.m.: SAM (Store and Move) is indeed a Fox News advertiser, a network spokeswoman clarifies. The company buys ads under the name Unigroup.]

[Updated at 4:43 p.m.: Beck posted his second-highest viewership ever Wednesday, attracting more than 3 million viewers for the hour.]

[Updated at 8:07 a.m., Aug. 28: Ashley Furniture HomeStore pulled its advertising from "Glenn Beck" as of Thursday, said Kendra Maggert, a spokeswoman for the company.]

-- Matea Gold

RELATED:

Glenn Beck goes after Color of Change co-founder Van Jones

Comments

[Kurt]

I hope all corporations start to see the risk of running adds on politically charged shows left or right. 24 news channels are not good for our country. They create more partican bickering and the public is reduced to a mass of jello rooting for a letter. Meanwhile both letters are in the process of bankrupting the country. Elections and votes are for sale and no one gets called out on it because everyone is too busy yelling D no R no D no R.

[Stan]

I have yet to hear anyone answer any of Becks charges. This leads me to believe they have merit. As for his viewers IQ, How about Bill Maher's viewers?

[Jeremy]

You know what's funny, YOU ALL never want to refute the facts Beck spouts, you only want to attack him as a nut..

Shows the (lack) of strength of your argument..!

[arturo herrera]

Beck is one of those idiots, like his buddy Lou Dobbs, who yell and screem things as if the louder he gets the more validity he has. There's always going to be those fringe groups who will give him a platform. Soon he will be exposed as Limbaugh has been. It's a cycle, louder-more audience, more audience-louder, then he will put his racists foot in his mouth for all to see, just like Dobbs/Limbaugh. Be patient folks and watch it happen. Enjoy.

[kiki romano]

WHY won't the White House or other political leaders CHALLENGE everything Beck says? That is the only way he will be exposed as the total moron he is! I do not like Glen Beck, but I do not have all day long to find the sources to challenge his claims. But the Democratic Party and the White House do! Why don't they organize a committee, and have the President insert some comments into his speeches or town meetings specifically debunking Beck?

[howardx]

perhaps the reason youre not "hearing anyone refute glenn beck" is because you only watch fox. also very amusing the way saul alinsky gets mentioned so much by the right wing, most liberals have no idea who he is.

[Sam]

Let's see, didn't Bill O'Reily settle a phone sex scandle with a FOXNews intern? And wasn't Rush Limbaugh strung out on oxycontin and found with a suitcase full of viagra while travelling from a third world country without a prescription?And you mean to tell me that people are actually putting their trust in a guy like Glen Beck whose only in it for the money? Don't be surprised if this over-the-top personality has a very visible and tremendous fall from his perch.

[jacob]

IF WE DONT STOP ISLAM THE STATUE OF LIBERY WILL BE WEARING A BOURKA SOON AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WILL CHOOSE THE COLOR OF IT.

Mr Beck is a great exposer of the truth .

[Sandra Preston]

Hold on! 2.81 million viewers? That's it?
That's nothing.

Are there 2.81 million idiots in America? Yes. And now we know their viewing habit.

Boycott FOX biased NEWS.

Dough-boy Beck needs to come out.

[Chester Ludlow]

arturo herrera is yet another liberal posting insults and inane opinion on this board, without having the intelligence or knowledge to dispute a single thing Beck says.

Like little children, they can only cry and call people names, they are not capable of actual debate.

[don e.]

Schopenhauer, Beethoven, Schonberg, von Leibnitz, Beck.

Beck? Another expansive genius with blood from the Rhineland? Hah!

This Teutonic buffoon wrapped in an American flag wallows in the mud and filth of open racism and division that ultimately broke the back of Europe and Germany. People, including his own cadre of fools like the over- qualified Palin, get hurt from sewer-mouths like his. He and his ilk have never internalized their lesson that everyone on the planet is ultimately of African descent. I know it hurts for some of us to deal with the truth. Africa. A very German name, another disgraceful "American" to use the word liberally with backward and very hateful inclinations. Beck is out of touch with his proven un-American values. May he goose-step his putrid vitriol that sells to ignorant citizens over a cliff.

[james]

An uneducated white man telling uneducated racist white people what they want to hear. And Sara Palin as his side kick? What a perfect match. Two trailer trash hillbillies...who are the voice of trailer trash hillbillies. Thank God he only has 3 million viewers which is about what, 3% of the population? Sounds about the size of trailer trash America.

[Cathy O'Dell]

America is loaded with morons, and these are the people who pay attention to the nonsense this King Moron, Glenn Beck, says. He is a loud-mouthed idiot who is as annoying as a fly.

[DL]

Some of the increase in viewers may be due to Palin's urging. Moron's like to stick together, but another reason why his audience might be increasing is simply because people want to see what the fuss is all about. Maybe some people want to watch Glenn for their own personal amusement and fun making. This guy is a lying non-fact checking idiot, and there are a lot of idiots out there just like him, unfortunately. Glenn Beck's idiotic and baseless statements are tragic jokes.

[r.b.]

Even though I'm tired of trying to be politally correct(it's very difficult)these oppisitions are the same people that said George Bush was a racist. Lets quit crying wolf so when something really important comes along people will hear and help us. Red,yellow,black or white.

[zack]

The picture above is a perfect example of why this guy shouldn't have a program on a "news" network. I'll give him the first 2 points in the field next to him. I couldn't agree with those more. My problem comes with the second two.

1) Left leaning orgs. writing bills.......... I would have reluctantly given him this one if the next point said "right leaning orgs writing bills". However, this should read, "Organizations writing bills".

2) Radicals advising the president.......... This is purely instigation. I am not defending the "radicals advising the president" here. I am questioning the fairness of this statement as it pertains to this administration vs. any administration. Also, radical is a pretty subjective in terms of people advising the president, but not so much on terrorism. So the free use of this term is playing to the "fear the terrorist" part of the brain that has been over-stimulated on Fox viewers. This will lead to more guns, which will lead to gun violence.

[AffirmativeAction]

... We believers that Americas true path is through marxisim can only join our black and left leaning brothers in railing against Beck and his ilk...we attack with all our god given rhetoric his right to say what he says ... of course we will not let the truth get in the way...we will just cloak ourselves in our mantra of all who disagree with us are low life ignorant racists...

[zack]

Jon-

Give me a TV show and I can prove that George Bush was behind 9/11. Doesn't make it true

[Adam]

This man reaches about 2 Million people every day out of a 300 million population of Americans! He only serves as clowns to his moron idiotic audience.

[John]

Let's see here, the right has loony Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the left has loony Al Gore and Michael Moore.

There are morons all on sides people - Get over it!