What Did Glenn Beck Know, And When Did He Know It?

Anyone who reads the New York Post knows the only decent sections of the paper are its sports section and its largely Conservative opinion page.  The rest of the paper is an embarrassing collection of tawdry photos of scantily clad starlets, gossip pages, and a smatter of local news.  The Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

They’re in hot water in England and trouble is coming to their operations here in America over a scandal involving the hacking of 9/11 families’ phones and message machines.  As John Batchelor notes:

The Murdoch inquiry turns dark as dried blood as Rupert Murdoch -- whom the doomed Conrad Black calls "like Napoleon, a great bad man' -- mocks the facts and calls the accusations against him and New Corps "total lies."  The game is afoot, as the US starts inquiries with the FBI, the Congress, the SEC and likely the FCC.  Spoke Felix Gillette, Bloomberg Businessweek, who spoke to an expert on the FCC re the "good character" clause of the FCC licenses.  The aim is to break News Corp in London and Washington; and the Murdochs have handed their enemies the weapon.  What did Rupert and James Murdoch know, and when did they know it of the hacking of mobile phones,…
By John Batchelor | July 15, 2011 2:31 AM (0)

All of which makes Glenn Beck’s departure from Fox News very interesting.  Was the cash cow pushed out, or did it runaway to find greener, safer pastures?  Meanwhile, the Fox News team is put in a very precarious position regarding their credibility, which up until now has been quite good.  Will our one and only source of Conservative news be tarnished, by association, out of existence?  They must be worried.  (One thing they might want to consider is putting their pretty female anchors in more modest clothing.)

Did Glenn Beck know that this mess was floating across the Atlantic like the Great Plastic Island?  Did he get out when the getting was good?  He may have also known about The TV Everywhere project, which is a collaboration of cable service providers, content providers (corporate networks), content producers, and advertisers.  Rather than operating in the risky free market, they plan to collude – with the government’s assistance – to thwart the new internet TV technology.

Consumers will be forced to purchase their cable television providers’ internet mechanism.  The content providers’ programs will be coded so that independent internet TV devices can’t override the signal.  If you’re a fan of, say, American Idol, an apolitical program under the parentage of AT&T, you will have to have AT&T’s technology to watch it on the Internet.  Content producers of programs have been ordered not to make their programs available on the Internet.

A report on TV Everywhere notes that the cable and telephone cable companies are running scared over the threat of this new technology, the same way the broadcast networks saw the arrival of cable television as the sky falling.  Their collusion over cable – with the help of local municipalities, cable companies were allowed monopolies over towns, destroying the possibility of competition and of consumers’ right to choose programming – has brought them tremendous profits and gouged prices for consumers.

Along comes the government, ostensibly to the rescue, with the Net Neutrality Bill.  They’re not much better.  They promise completely free cable and internet television.  As we all know, there’s no such thing as a free TV program.  We’ll all be paying for more Liberal propaganda programs through our taxes, in addition to the bureaucratic fees that make up part of our cable bills.  No one wants to be robbed, but decent people understand that companies have to make a profit in order to stay in business.  If they can’t make a profit, they’ll become dependent on government subsidies and that will be the end of freedom of speech.

Cable TV, broadcasting companies, content producers, advertisers, and government bureaucrats see the writing on Glenn’s chalkboard.  The only people who haven’t seen it are television viewers, happily glued to their sets, afraid to cut the cable for fear they won’t be able to watch American Idol, NCIS, The Simpsons, or, God help us, The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

They don’t want to “pay” to watch television.  They seem to think they’re getting something for free with their $150 to $200-plus a month cable bills, complete with advertising and hidden costs.  My Roku is on its way.  Fearing just what I would read a day or two later, I went the extra bucks and bought their wireless version (the standard Roku box was sold out).

I don’t know about you readers (I know you don’t like the “I” word – but I can only speak for myself on this matter), but I’ll be doggoned and hornswaggled before I’m going to let anyone trap me into pre-programming, telling me what I can and can’t watch, and making me pay for Liberal propaganda garbage that makes my hair stand on end.  I’ve been waiting for a chance to ditch cable and its prison programming.  That day may just have arrived with technology like Roku.

Hopefully, other companies will follow suit.  Maybe I won’t be able to watch History Channel anymore.  Happily, Roku is affiliated with NetFlix, so movies are no problem.  But maybe a producer is out there, with an alternative to History Channel, just waiting to find someone (like Roku) who will carry it, no strings, propaganda – or cables – attached.