American political commentator (born 1964)
Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the "Glenn Beck Radio Program", a talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the "Glenn Beck" television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six "New York Times"–bestselling books.
In April 2011, Beck announced that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News, but would continue to team with Fox. His last daily show on Fox was June 30, 2011. In 2012, "The Hollywood Reporter" placed Beck on its Digital Power Fifty list. Beck launched TheBlaze in 2011 after leaving Fox News. He hosts an hour-long afternoon program, "The Glenn Beck Program", on weekdays, and a three-hour morning radio show; both are broadcast on TheBlaze. Beck is also the producer of TheBlaze's "For the Record".
Beck has received both praise and criticism, characterized by his supporters as a defender of traditional American values and by his detractors as a demagogue. During Barack Obama's presidency, Beck promoted conspiracy theories about Obama, his administration, George Soros, and others.
Early life and education.
Beck was born in Everett, Washington, the son of Mary Clara (née Janssen) and William Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated a downtown bakery. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th century. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.
Beck and his sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. In 1979, when Beck was 15, his mother drowned in Puget Sound while fishing with a man in Commencement Bay west of Tacoma. Her companion also drowned; police investigators believed that one of the victims may have fallen overboard and the other drowned in a rescue attempt. Beck has called his mother's death a suicide in interviews.
After their mother's death, Beck moved to his father's home in Bellingham, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in 1982. Beck also regularly vacationed with his maternal grandparents, Ed and Clara Janssen, in Iowa. In the aftermath of his mother's death and his stepbrother's subsequent suicide, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, after graduating from high school, he moved to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington, D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.
Personal life.
While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. They married in 1983 and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and has said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.
In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.
Beck then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved reading the work of six wide-ranging authors, constituting what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later. (Later, after moving to the New York City area, he had a consultation with Graham, which he said affected him strongly.
In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by Pat Gray. Beck and Tania have two children together. Until April 2011, the couple lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.
In July 2010, Beck announced that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying, "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes. I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not.'" The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.
In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas. The Blaze has been based in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, since 2011.
On November 10, 2014, Beck announced on TheBlaze that he had been suffering from a severe neurological disorder for at least the last five years. He described many strong and debilitating symptoms that made it difficult for him to work, and also announced that he had "a string of health issues that quite honestly made me look crazy, and quite honestly, I have felt crazy because of them". Beck said that a chiropractor who specializes in "chiropractic neurology", Frederick Carrick, had "diagnosed [him] with several health issues, including an autoimmune disorder, which he didn't name, and adrenal fatigue." Over 10 months he had received a series of treatments and felt better. On January 13, 2022, Beck announced that his second case of COVID-19 was "getting into my lungs".
Career.
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Glenn Beck has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth.
 –"Forbes", April 2010
In 2002, Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over his broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show interests. Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, naming it after the Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which produced live radio broadcasts during the 1930s. The company produces all of Beck's productions, including his eponymous radio show, books, live stage shows, and his official website.
Radio.
In 1983, Beck moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, he was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for WRKA's morning-drive radio broadcast in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called "Captain Beck and the A-Team". Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the genre's usual off-color antics: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. It slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.
Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on the air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. He was fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.
Beck then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. After Gray and Beck were fired, they spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, they moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gatineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.
The "Glenn Beck Program" first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, and took its afternoon time slot from 18th to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, "The New York Times" reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked fourth in the nation with over 6.5 million listeners. As of  2013[ [update]], Beck was tied for fourth in the ratings, behind Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Dave Ramsey.
Television.
In January 2006, CNN's "Headline News" announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in its new prime-time block "Headline Prime". The show, simply called "Glenn Beck", aired weeknights. "CNN Headline News" called the show "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second-largest audience, behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, he won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to Fox, Beck hosted "Glenn Beck", beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. He also had a regular segment on Fridays, "At Your Beck and Call", on the Fox News Channel program "The O'Reilly Factor". As of  2009[ [update]], Beck's program drew more viewers than all three competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.
Beck's show's high ratings did not come without controversy. "The Washington Post"'s Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" had complicated the channel's and its journalists' efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", saying, "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."
In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would team with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, when he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn't belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out