Glenn Beck’s Internet venture begins streaming
Monday afternoon, just two months after the Fox News Channel’s “Glenn Beck Program” went off the air, its controversial host began streaming online content from his new venture, GBTV.
GBTV will offer a two-hour weekday program featuring Mr. Beck, which is available as part of a two-tiered paid-subscription package. Reuters reported that the site already has more subscribers than the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Mr. Beck’s show will be produced by Joel Cheatwood, a former Fox News executive who previously was executive director of program development at CNN.
Subscribers will find a GBTV launch schedule dominated by three hours of Mr. Beck’s radio show per day - programming already available in syndication over the air for free. An additional two hours consist of Mr. Beck’s new Internet-only television show. GBTV said it will add programming from contributors including Brian Sack, Raj Nair, S.E. Cupp and Amy Holmes.
Some analysts are skeptical of the venture. Bloomberg reported that up to one-third of GBTV subscribers do not represent new revenue, because they already are subscribers to the online premium-content version of Mr. Beck’s radio show.
The schedule shows no Saturday or Sunday programming for GBTV’s first weekend, and no online schedule is available past the first week of operations.
Others are more optimistic: Forbes has reported a BTIG Research analyst’s projection of GBTV’s revenues at $27 million per year, with the potential for the venture to pay as much as $135 million per year.
Mr. Beck’s previous contract with Fox News paid $2.5 million per year.
The company Mr. Beck owns that manages his full media portfolio, Mercury Radio Arts, made $40 million last year, a source told Bloomberg.
Justin Bieber wants to be a family man
Before you know it, pop prince Justin Bieber might use his hit song “Baby” to serenade his own offspring.
In a recent interview with Women’s Wear Daily, the 17-year-old said he’d like to settle down and become a family man in the next decade.
“Well by 25 or 26, I want to see myself, like, married or start looking for a family,” Justin told Women’s Wear Daily on Thursday. “I want to be a young dad.”
Perhaps the Canadian dance sensation is drawing from experience. Justin’s mother, Patti Mallette, became pregnant with the Teen Choice Award winner as a teenager and raised him primarily as a single mom.
“We went to the food drive all the time. I always thought, ’If I ever get rich or famous, I will help people who are less fortunate than me,’ ” Justin said of his upbringing. “This year I’m helping with the food drive in my hometown. I’m just trying to do as much as I can with everything I do.”
Only time will tell whether Justin’s current girlfriend, Selena Gomez, is his soul mate and future wife.
“She’s amazing,” Justin said of the Disney actress. “She’s my girlfriend right now.”
’Tiaras’ taking heat over child dressed as prostitute
The TLC reality show “Toddlers and Tiaras” often generates negative press, but an episode featuring a 3-year-old contestant dressed like the prostitute played by Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” has rubbed many viewers the wrong way.
Wendy Dickey, mother of the little girl who channeled the film’s streetwalker, told TMZ her daughter’s ensemble was “meant to be funny [and] not sexual at all,” but the Parents Television Council was anything but amused by the child’s knee-high boots and yellow wig.
“Whether you love or loathe child beauty pageants, everyone should agree that sexualizing a 3-year-old little girl is wrong,” PTC wrote in a statement. “But that is exactly what the TLC network has done.”
“Such brazen and wanton material should qualify as child exploitation or abuse,” the statement continued. “Instead of creating ratings-friendly buzz, TLC engendered outrage among millions of parents and grandparents who are tired of seeing children exploited for ratings and robbed of their innocence by a greedy entertainment industry that will stop at nothing to make a buck.”
Sherri Shepherd of “The View” responded to the “Toddlers and Tiaras” debacle.
“When are we going to stop sexualizing our children?” Miss Shepherd said. “Your job is to protect your child. … If you don’t think pedophiles are watching this show, I have a bridge I want to sell you.”
Another pageant parent told ABC News that Mrs. Dickey gives all pageant mothers a bad name.
“Us pageant moms already take a huge rap for what we’re doing with our little girls and it’s outfits like that that give us a bad rap,” the mother told the network.
• Compiled by Laura Donovan, Michael Watson 2011 The Daily Caller
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