Glenn Beck's Blaze Announces Mass Layoffs

Glenn Beck has laid off more than 20 percent of staff at TheBlaze, his right-wing news organization, and the Mercury Radio Arts, his production company.

According to deadline.com, the cuts were announced Thursday by Beck  in an op-ed on TheBlaze.com. The company’s total payroll once reached approximately 300, but cuts in the last few years halved that number. Various reports put the headcount affected by this round of layoffs between 100 and 150, which means anywhere from 20 to 30 people lost employment.

In an op-ed titled “A message from Glenn Beck: A Heavy Heart and the Road Ahead,” he laid out the problems his company faces.

“Today, we said goodbye to just over 20 percent of the combined workforce of Mercury Radio Arts and TheBlaze (with most of the changes happening at TheBlaze),” he said. “We are losing a lot of talented and committed colleagues, who are some of the best human beings I know  —  some have been friends of mine for 30 years.”

“We are not PBS,” he added. “No government institution is going to write us a giant check. The structural challenges facing media companies today are real; but, when someone  — anyone  — tells me that something can’t be done, it only makes me more determined to prove them wrong.” Beck did not specify the “structural challenges” facing his organization.

TheBlaze was founded by Beck in 2011 and broadcasts on regional cable networks across the United States.

The online conservative media space has become increasingly crowded, with the Blaze going up against the likes of Breitbart, Drudge Report and the Daily Caller. But marketers, fearing brand safety issues, often add those sites to their blacklists.

“The percentage of Fortune 500 or even Fortune 1000 companies that advertise on Conservative Media vs. Media in general is very low,” Mercury Radio Arts President Jonathan Schreiber writes in a blog post, explaining sites like the Blaze have to rely on direct-response advertising.

The problem with direct-response ads, though, is that their goal is getting users to click away from sites, which is in direct conflict with publishers wanting to increase dwell time.