More Advertisers Bolt Glenn Beck

FILE - In this May 5, 2009 file photo, newscaster Glenn Beck attends the Time 100 Gala, a celebration of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, file)

NEW YORK — Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel after a vacation on Monday with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that is has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.

The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a "safe" environment for their messages. The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors.

They also host the most-watched programs on their networks.

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation, averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

ColorofChange.org quickly targeted companies whose ads had appeared during Beck's show, telling them what he had said and seeking a commitment to drop him. The goal is to make Beck a liability, said James Rucker, the organization's executive director.

"They have a toxic asset," Rucker said. "They can either clean it up or get rid of it."

It's not immediately clear how many of the companies actually knew they were advertising on Beck's show. Sometimes commercial time is chosen for a specific show, but often it is bought on a rotation basis, meaning the network sprinkles the ads throughout the day on its own schedule. Sometimes ads appear by mistake; Best Buy said it bought commercial time for earlier in the day, and one of its ads unexpectedly appeared in Beck's show.

One company, CVS Caremark, said it advertises on Fox but hadn't said anything about Beck. Now it has told its advertising agency to inform Fox that it wanted no commercials on Beck.

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful," said spokeswoman Carolyn Castel.

Besides the unpredictability of the opinionated cable hosts, the rapid pace of today's wired world complicates decisions on where to place ads, said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Sprint. She said she was surprised at how fast the Beck issue spread across social media outlets and how quickly advertiser names were attached to it.

UPS' Hallabran said the decision to pull commercials "should not be interpreted as we are permanently withdrawing our advertising from Fox." He said the company wants to reach viewers with a wide spectrum of opinions.

Except for UPS Stores, there's no evidence that any advertisers who say they don't want to be on Beck's show are leaving Fox. Network spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the companies have simply requested the ads be moved elsewhere and that Fox hasn't lost any revenue.

She wouldn't say whether Fox was benefiting from any anti-anti-Beck backlash, with companies looking to support him. Some Beck supporters have urged fans to express their displeasure at companies for abandoning their man.

Beck supporters have suggested that retaliation might have something to do with ColorofChange.org's campaign. One of the group's founders, Van Jones, now works in the Obama administration and has been criticized by Beck. But Rucker said Jones has nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't even know about the campaign before it started.

Beck's strong ratings – even at 5 p.m. EDT he often outdraws whatever CNN and MSNBC show in prime-time – make it unlikely Beck is going anywhere even with the list of advertisers avoiding him approaches three dozen.

But it could mean advertising time becomes cheaper on his show than such a large audience would normally command. Some of his show's advertisers last week included a male enhancement pill, a law firm looking to sue on behalf of asbestos victims, a company selling medical supplies to diabetics and a water filter company.

Rucker said ColorofChange.org has contacted about 60 companies regarding Beck, and is heartened by the response.

"It's causing a certain conversation around Beck, which I think is important," he said.

The top item on many social news sites this morning is a screenshot (below) that purportedly shows an embarrassing message a woman posted to her public Facebook page. If real, it’s a mistake that might take some time to recover from.

Is it genuine thought? The jury’s out: while it doesn’t appear to be Photoshopped, and the woman’s friends are definitely real Facebook () members, it’s very possible the account was compromised by another person.

What do you think: real, fake, a malicious prank…or something else?

For more Facebook funnies, see Top 5 Funniest Fake Facebook Pages

The full size image is here.

 From ChicagoTribune.com:

'The Ugly Truth' stars Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, John Michael Higgins, Cheryl Hines

Rating: 11/2 stars (poor-fair)

By Michael Phillips | Tribune critic

July 24, 2009

This article is also featured on my blog: the nuzzo news.

This isn't an official movie review, cause I haven't actually seen the film in it's entirety as of yet. But, I do in fact work at a movie theater. I'm employed at the Starplex Cinemas in Normal, IL (if you were interested in knowing). So with my part-time job, I have some knowledgeable intel on the matter. 

It seems like most people either like the film, find it mediocre, or for the few that loved it: liked it more than the first. I fall some where in between. From the three 30-minute segments that I've seen on my breaks; I wasn't too much more impressed than the first Transformers movie. I could tell that their budget was a little bigger, so a few things were tweaked to make it more enjoyable. For example, in the first film, the camera footage was way too shaky during the action scenes and they fixed that. It also seemed like they upped the anti in the CGI department. And, I will admit, there was some more hot Megan Fox scenes. But, it seemed like they tried way too hard to do that for the audience, and it most definitely worked. 

But, even with those two improvements and more, it just didn't do it for me.

The cons of Transformers 2 just barely out weigh the pros of the first one. One thing that I noticed was, one of the antagonist Transformers' (also known as decepticons) Starscream's voice wasn't the same. I don't know, it just didn't sound the same. Meh, besides that puny pet peeve of mine, the acting was nothing more than "B-Budget." Every time someone engaged in a conversation, I nearly clenched my teeth. And, please, please, if there's a Transformers 3, avoid any and all romantic scenes. Okay, fine, with this Hollywood market there must be at least one. But, just one. Maybe two could slide. But, from what I saw so far in this new Transformers, there was way too much kissy-kissy, and not enough Transformy-formy (sorry, that was bad). And, I'm not even going to begin talking about the plot of the film. "What plot? What story?," you say - exactly my point.

Here's what the professional critics thought, from TrailerAddict.comTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen Reviews. 

Overall, my unofficial the nuzzo news' movie rating is 3/5 stars.

As a movie it deserves a 2/5 Stars.

But since those pesky transforming alien robots are so awesome/cool, I give it an extra star for shits (no giggles).

So, what do you think of the film?

07-04-2009
by muckraker
I think you should see tha damn movie completely before formulating an opinion and writing a review.

Which one is it?

Which one is the bigger failure?

I have not yet seen either of these movies, but they don't seem too promising. The trailers were decent and the cast seemed great. But, those are two key things that draw in a majority of the crowd. However, I will most likely check them out since I work at a movie theater. And, will be sure to report back upon my viewing pleasure.

So, the reason I speculate these two particular films are due to the unnecessary amounts of hype and buzz they received from the public media. The same goes for The Hangover, but that actually ended up being a great movie.

Not just have a heard Year One is a poor film, but have read it in varies media outlets at TrailerAddict.com.

What do you think?

07-04-2009
by muckraker
What's a failure here is that you have opinions on movies you haven't seen. That FAILS to make sense.

 I have no idea what she's talking about but she sure is pretty.

Oprah's KFC Catastrophe

By dan.mitchell - The Big Money

Oprah Winfrey's decision to put her name on KFC's online coupon promotion turned quickly into a "PR nightmare," as described by QSRweb, which covers the quick-service restaurant industry.

The nightmare isn't, as you might think, due to Oprah's hypocrisy in lending her name to one of the worst chicken-abusers in the food business, but rather to the overwhelming response of consumers demanding their promised free food. Gawker spread a rumor that there were "riots" breaking out on Wednesday at a Midtown Manhattan KFC outlet.

There weren't, but there were a lot of angry people who thought they would get a free two-piece Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal but didn't because the store had run out. The coupons were promoted both on The Oprah Winfrey Show and at Oprah.com.

A spokeswoman from KFC owner Yum Brands (YUM) told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the promotion created "extreme" demand nationwide.

So extreme that KFC President Roger Eaton had to write a note of apology to would-be freeloaders who flocked to Oprah's Web site to download their coupons. "We are so sorry," he wrote, "but due to the overwhelming response to our FREE Kentucky Grilled Chicken meal coupon, we can no longer redeem the free coupon at this time." The company would offer rain checks, along with a free Pepsi, to those who already had coupons, he assured.

Advertising Age called in a "crisis expert" to assess the situation. "The combination of free food and Oprah is a tsunami," said Robbie Vorhaus. "Clearly KFC wasn't ready."

Have KFC executives ever watched Oprah give stuff away on her show? What did they think was going to happen?

Meanwhile, almost lost amid all the hoopla is the question of why Oprah would lend her name to KFC, which is a primary target of animal rights activists who say the chain uses suppliers—chiefly Tyson Foods (TSN)—that house chickens in deplorable conditions before killing them in a deplorable manner.

Oprah has repeatedly railed against factory farming and was once targeted by the meat industry for her on-air avowal to avoid burgers.

Paula Crossfield of Civil Eats wrote that because "Oprah has marketed herself as one who cares about animals, even getting a 'Person of the Year' award last year from PETA, this KFC campaign is a serious disappointment to say the least."

Not that we should be shocked. Oprah has repeatedly shown that her principles are flexible.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

The Winnie the Pooh books were always sort of sad. Eeyore was depressed, piglet was a ball of anxiety, Owl wasn't as smart as he thought he was, and Pooh himself was a compulsive over-eater. But now, via the Daily What, we've found the saddest part of Winnie the Pooh ever: The story in which Pooh contemplates killing piglet because of the swine flu...

~From HuffingtonPost.com

You can't get a decent job with a high school diploma anymore. Careers in fields like transportation, construction and manufacturing are either dead ends and/or no longer pay enough to support a family. The Conservative point of view on this is, “Well, they just need to go back to school and they can get a better job.” The problem with this is that most students graduate college with tens of thousands of dollars in debt, if they can qualify for the loan in the first place; if they have never had the misfortune to run afoul of the War on Drugs.

It used to be that the American dream took hard work and brains to achieve, now it takes that and access to funds to finance your education and enough savvy to keep your footing in the economic shitstorm that is currently gripping the world.. In the past you could actually “work your way through college” with a crappy job. It was part of paying your dues. Now, our new President paid off his and his wife's student loans with money from his best-selling books! He was a state legislator, she was a successful lawyer and they were still making payments on their own education, while trying to raise a family and have something left to pay for their kids' college. WTF?

America is the only industrialized nation that does not provide free or cheap higher education to it's citizens (or health care, but that's another rant). It makes no sense, especially when the “global economy” is so competitive. People with degrees simply make more money than those without one. If they make more, they can then spend more and keep the expansion model economy chugging along. They can also pay a little more in taxes, which is not an entirely bad thing.

The cynical view is that “the Man” is trying to continue the dumbing down of America to the point where jingoism and propaganda take the place of practicality and critical thought on the big questions like “Should we go to war with x ?” and “Where are we going and why are we in a hand basket?”

Keeping one eye on the powers behind the powers,

OneEyeChuck