Conservative internet media companies CRTV (Cary Katz) and TheBlaze (Glenn Beck) merge

[Pooh]

Pretty big story if you follow conservative media on the internet.

Glenn Beck founded TheBlaze in 2011, and it is carried both on the internet and on various TV providers. TheBlaze was responsible for the rise of barbie doll / angry conservative chick star Tomi Lahren, until her pro-choice comments torpedoed her career and created a rift with Beck.

CRTV was founded by billionaire (and sometimes poker player) Cary Katz in 2014, and meant to be a direct competitor of TheBlaze. However, it was not on any television stations, and was subscription only.

CRTV recently has been involved in some controversy, due to a lawsuit against one of its former hosts (Mark Steyn), and Katz suing his own company regarding a loan he gave, which some believed was related in some way to the Steyn suit.

CRTV's best known hosts are Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, Steven Crowder, Gavin McInnes, Phil Robertson, and Eric Bolling.

TheBlaze's best known hosts are Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Pat Gray. They once had S.E. Cupp, Dana Loesch, and Tomi Lahren, but clearly they've been short on name talent as of late.

Despite the "merger", the company will continue under TheBlaze brand despite the majority of hosts on the new network hailing from CRTV.

Even the company's new banner on theblaze.com features Crowder, Beck, and Levin, where 2/3 came from CRTV.

TheBlaze has fired a lot of company executives in recent years, and there have been rumors that they were struggling financially. Beck walked off a CNN interview in June, when it was suggested that TheBlaze was in trouble.

It is unclear what terms are involved in this merger. Was it a straight sale where Cary Katz decided to wash his hands of the CRTV headache? Or was this a situation where Katz is content to simply take an ownership stake in TheBlaze and give the wheel to Beck to handle the day-to-day management?

Some also are theorizing that this merger is taking place because Fox News has recently launched their own online conservative media service, and this merger is meant to compete with them.

Steven Crowder, who is now probably the network's #2 star behind Beck, announced in late November that he's been experiencing health problems, and is suspending the show until mid-January "in order to heal". He claimed to have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Clearly he really does plan to return in January, as I'm sure his continued production of new shows was a large element to this deal.

Crowder also mentioned in that episode that he will come back to a much larger staff and would be moving studios again, presumably cryptically referencing the upcoming merger.

TheBlaze is available on Frontier/Verizon FIOS, Dish Network, Cablevision, and various other cable providers. It is not clear if the subscription-only content on CRTV will now be available for free on the Blaze TV network.

You fucking nuts? Levin is the biggest star in those two companies and it isn't close. Guy has the fourth most listened to talk show in the country plus the highest rated time slot on cable tv lol. Pay attention.

[Dan Druff]

Didn't realize Levin was that big.

Guess I was wrong about that one.

Steven Crowder is coming back on January 17, after a 2-month hiatus, supposedly due to health issues.

However, I looked at his YouTube video comments, and everyone hates that he joined Beck's network. In fact, tons of people posted that they either cancelled their subscription or won't subscribe, because they "don't want to support Beck".

Beck's Never-Trump position really pissed off some conservatives, and then his firing of Gavin McInnes has gotten them even angrier.

Others are concerned that Beck is going to be too hands-on and controlling of Crowder, whereas Cary Katz and CRTV were mostly hands-off.

[Pooh]

Didn't realize Levin was that big.

Guess I was wrong about that one.

Steven Crowder is coming back on January 17, after a 2-month hiatus, supposedly due to health issues.

However, I looked at his YouTube video comments, and everyone hates that he joined Beck's network. In fact, tons of people posted that they either cancelled their subscription or won't subscribe, because they "don't want to support Beck".

Beck's Never-Trump position really pissed off some conservatives, and then his firing of Gavin McInnes has gotten them even angrier.

Others are concerned that Beck is going to be too hands-on and controlling of Crowder, whereas Cary Katz and CRTV were mostly hands-off.

Didn't Beck do a 180 on Trump? I don't follow the guy much but I know he has O'Reilly on his show once a week and he seems pretty upbeat about the President from what I've listened to in the past. I never cared much for Beck personally. Or O'Reilly it was just something I'd listen to when I was bored. I like Levin. Him and Rush are my go to's although as I've soured on Trump some I can't say it isn't painful listening to them lately. Hannity sucks. Never listened to anyone like Crowder. Ben Shapiro is a guy you just want to punch in the face. Savage was great but he's just a handful to listen to. The two hours of liberal callers episode on youtube is best thing ever though.

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

Crowder is back after his 2-month hiatus.

Curiously, despite some teaser videos on YouTube promising that the January 17th "return" episode would be there, it never showed up. Instead, it appeared on TheBlaze's website:

https://www.blazetv.com/video/ep-421...r-with-crowder

Is it possible that Beck is now forcing him to post the full episodes on theblazetv.com, and not on YouTube?

That would be a



... if that's what going on.


And if that's NOT what's going on, it's a pretty epic fail to promote a January 17th return and then forget to post the show to the platform where 99.9% of your audience typically finds your shows.

[Dan Druff]

So I'm walking the dog this morning and think, "Hey, I'd like to continue where I left off with Crowder's new episode".

So I load up BlazeTV and of course the interface is a gigantic fail.

No way to make it full screen (I tried to click on the button to do so, and nothing happened), and even worse, there's no way to skip around in the show. You can fast forward or rewind 30 seconds, and that's it.

This is on an iPhone. The interface is fine on a PC, but it was impossible to skip around on the phone, nor could I make the picture big.

What a joke. At least have a good interface if you're going to force people to use your shitty site instead of YouTube.

[Dan Druff]

Finally it showed up. Weird delay. Wonder if YouTube was fucking with them and repeatedly deleting it.

[Pooh]

Listen to Levin regularly and he barely mentions Blaze tv while he mentions other sponsors and shit like books multiple times each show. I don't think anyone is happy about it and it's probably all Katz's fault because he probably wanted out or because of the lawsuit with Stein. Who the hell knows at this point but Levin was basically begging people not to cancel their subs so obviously things haven't been going as planned for the merger. I hope it fails personally. Beck can blow me. Levin really starting to get on my nerves too. Rush too with his fucking ego. It's embarrassing. He plays every sound byte that includes his name each show. Every friggin day. Embarrassing.

[Dan Druff]

Listen to Levin regularly and he barely mentions Blaze tv while he mentions other sponsors and shit like books multiple times each show. I don't think anyone is happy about it and it's probably all Katz's fault because he probably wanted out or because of the lawsuit with Stein. Who the hell knows at this point but Levin was basically begging people not to cancel their subs so obviously things haven't been going as planned for the merger. I hope it fails personally. Beck can blow me. Levin really starting to get on my nerves too. Rush too with his fucking ego. It's embarrassing. He plays every sound byte that includes his name each show. Every friggin day. Embarrassing.

Rush kinda lost me years ago when he had that pill popping addiction.

Not because I gave a shit about him abusing pain pills, because I didn't. In fact, even the cops admitted that he wasn't doing them for pleasure, but rather had a chronically hurting back and was desperate to do anything to bring the pain down.

But that whole thing, which included a bout of almost full deafness as a result, really sapped his energy. While he's over the pills, he just kinda sounds tired and worn down. He's not the same guy as he was in the 90s.

Good chance TheBlaze fails. Beck ruins everything he touches.

I really like Crowder's show, with the exception of some of the interviews, which tend to be too often a mutual dick sucking session.

[Dan Druff]

Soooo.... there's some drama brewing in Crowder Land.

In the two months Crowder has been gone, a lot has happened.

CRTV sold to TheBlaze, meaning the unpopular Glenn Beck was now in charge.

TheBlaze fired Gavin McInnes, and somehow Michelle Malkin didn't make it over, either (she claims it was her decision, but whatever).

When Crowder posted his little preview videos about a week ago, the comments were surprisingly negative. Whereas previous Crowder videos had almost 100% positive comments, these preview videos were full of bashing of Beck, complaints about Gavin's firing, and accusations against Crowder that he sold out. Many said that they were cancelling their "Mug Club" subscriptions (more on that later).

But the shit really hit the fan after comedian and 2018 Crowder contributor Owen Benjamin dropped a crazy video (which I'll link below).

The background on Owen Benjamin:

He's a libertarian-right type comedian who likes writing little songs about current events, which he then sings while playing the piano. Prior to the above video, my feelings on Owen were mixed. Sometimes I felt he was offensive just for the sake of being offensive, but other times he was genuinely funny, including a lot of his off-the-cuff quips when he would guest on Crowder.

Owen started off as just an occasional guest on Crowder, probably in 2017 (I didn't really keep track). He'd appear via Skype, do one of his songs (which ranged from lame to pretty funny), and then they'd feign outrage and hang up on him.

Over time, his role with the show increased. When #2 man "Not Gay Jared" left the show under still-mysterious circumstances in August 2018, Owen became a lot more present, and was frequently in the studio towards the end of 2018.

What I didn't know was that they had quietly hired him as a full time writer for the show. Owen claims they "only" paid him $30 per hour and forced him to wake up at 5am to work with the rest of the team, but he thought Crowder was going places, and was happy to have the job.

Then, while Crowder was gone for 2 months, Owen turned into a nutcase. Well, he either turned into one, or stopped hiding that he was one.

Owen started ranting on Twitter that the moon landing was fake, and he wasn't doing it comically or ironically. He got very passionate about the subject, and aggressively argued with anyone who doubted him. He was acting irrationally, and some people turned on him at that point. However, many of Crowder's fans were either unaware of all this, or they dismissed it as unimportant, and weren't concerned.

Crowder and/or Beck got wind of Owen's crazy behavior, and the decision was made to fire him. However, they apparently chose not to tell Owen, probably fearing that he'd spend the next 2 months trashing Crowder and the show while it was on hiatus.

When Owen asked about the writing, he was stalled, and they supposedly told him they'd contact him when they needed him.

Then Owen was shocked when Crowder announced the return of the show on January 17th. Why hadn't they called him?

Owen then contacted Crowder, who allegedly told him that Beck was uncomfortable with the fake moon landing talk, and a decision was made not to have him continue association with Louder With Crowder.

Owen doesn't seem to hold any of this against Crowder himself, and in fact says that Crowder is still his friend, and actually got him back into Christianity. He seems to detest Glenn Beck, though, as you'll see below.

Owen dropped a video on Friday explaining all of this, though he comes off as a partially-unhinged, anti-Semitic nutcase:




Anyway, this seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back for many Crowder fans.

There have been too many changes since July, and none of them have been explained to the viewer:

- Popular intern/show contributor "Sven Computer" was abruptly fired in July due to some kind of dispute with Crowder

- Longtime co-host / producer "Not Gay Jared" abruptly left the show a few weeks later, citing that his wife was having a baby in a few months. Right after leaving the show, Jared posted a picture of himself at church with Sven, which some people took as a "fuck you" to Crowder. Despite the fact that they claimed Jared's departure was amicable and he'd occasionally return, they've scrubbed his existence from the show, and never mention him.

- Intern and show contributor "Aaron" also vanished from the show with no explanation, around the same time as Jared

- CRTV was sold to BlazeTV, so now Glenn Beck runs the network which airs Crowder (and perhaps owns the show?)

- BlazeTV fired Gavin McInnes, a popular figure with many Crowder fans

- Owen Benjamin was let go, and apparently not notified


So now a lot of Crowder's former diehard supporters think that he's just a Beck sellout, and screws over anyone loyal to him.

I think that assessment is a bit unfair, as we don't know what went on behind the scenes, and we can tell that Owen turned into a nutjob.

But it does remain true that every on-screen personality on the show in the first half of 2018 is now gone, with the exception of Crowder and his good real-life friend Gerald.

It also doesn't help that the first show back, promised to be "epic", wasn't one of the better episodes.

Anyway, everything's not off to a very good start under the new Beck regime.