Ready for the Glenn Beck Channel?
Well, not quite yet, but the New York Times reports that the Fox News Channel personality is contemplating the idea of a “partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel.”
Beck has reportedly been mulling the idea of his own cable network for more than a year but isn’t eyeing it as a direct competitor to Fox News Channel.
The news, which the Times attributes to anonymous sources, comes on the heels of a previous report that Fox News executives are mulling the idea not renewing Beck’s contract when it expires in December because of the host’s declining viewership.
The speculation also follows reports that senior Fox News executive Joel Cheatwood is joining Beck’s media company Mercury Radio Arts — a sign, according to the Times, that Beck intends to leave Fox at year’s end.
Another option Beck is said to be considering involves expanding his online subscription video service.
A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment to the Times, saying only that Beck’s contract is “not up until December.”
Beck also declined to talk but issued a statement through his spokesman: “Roger Ailes has built the most important voice in America today — Fox News — and it is an honor to do my show there every night. I have no intention whatsoever of doing the show I am doing now on Fox anywhere else.”
