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Key links:
Primary website:
theblaze.om
Primary Twitter:
@theblaze

Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate. It’s best used as a snapshot of the media landscape at that point in time.

The Blaze is a conservative, libertarian media brand associated with American radio host Glenn Beck, that is comprised of radio, television and web programming.

Beck founded Mercury Radio Arts in 2002, out of which grew his eponymous and extremely popular radio program on American politics. In 2010, Beck’s company launched The Blaze, a news and opinion website run by four people that received nearly 2 million unique views in its first days.

About a year later, Glenn Beck TV was launched, on September 12, 2011, about two and a half months after Beck departed Fox News. In June of 2012, Beck rebranded all of these media properties under the name The Blaze, after the website which, by that time, was approaching 9 million unique views a month and employed 17 full time staffers. In total, Beck employs over 100 people.

As of 2013, The Blaze reported revenue between $25 and $100 million. In February of that year, Beck launched a campaign asking listeners to ask their local cable and satellite providers to pick up The Blaze web channel, which has been distributed via the Dish Network since 2012. At least three other networks followed suit.

Although Beck has frequently stated his preference for the independence afforded him by relying on subscription fees rather than outside investors, in 2013 TechCruch reported that Beck was seeking to fundraise $40 million for the expansion of certain international programs, among other projects. The Blaze brand has recently also come to include a digital and print magazine, a series of e-books and an online marketplace for the promotion of small businesses.

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Primary author: Caroline O'Donovan. Main text last updated: June 12, 2014.
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The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit news organization based in Washington, D.C., that produces investigative journalism on public-interest issues. The center was founded by Charles Lewis in 1989, who was its director until 2005. Its staff has fluctuated between 25 to more than 50 throughout the 2000s and 2010s; most recently, it laid…

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