Bill Shine on the “Win-Win” of Glenn Beck

By SteveK 

At 5pmET today, Fox News premieres one of the biggest free agent signings in the network’s short history, as Glenn Beck takes over to compete with MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and CNN’s The Situation Room.

“He’s an established star, he’s huge on radio, big on TV,” SVP Bill Shine tells TVNewser today. “That for us is a win-win. Hopefully we get the radio audience to follow over to TV…In terms of going up against the competition I think we’re going to do very well.”

Shine says another FNC executive, Joel Cheatwood, was “instrumental” in bringing Beck from Headline News to FNC. Cheatwood was one of the creators of Beck’s show at HLN.

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“We always kept one eye on Glenn,” says Shine. “We talked about some way to make that work, and Joel was a leader trying to get that done.”

Shine says the show will differ somewhat from the HLN program. “We don’t want to change Glenn,” he says. “He’s a very talented, smart guy. It’s a new studio, new graphics and the way the show is produced will be a little different than the way he did it over there.”

But in the wake of “Hannity” at 9pmET, what does another right-of-center opinion host mean for the direction of FNC? Click continued to see Shine’s take and some of the other Beck profiles from the past week…


Shine says there is a major difference between FNC’s opinion shows and those on other networks. “Unlike some other shows on our competition, [our shows] are not an hour of the same guests coming on every night saying ‘you’re right, you’re right, you’re right,’ he says. “We believe in having differences of opinions on.”

Beck brought some of his radio staff in, while some FNC staff remain. But Shine says the transition has been smooth: “It’s been a great fit, I think, since day one. It’s actually been quite easy, to be honest with you. So far working together has been fantastic.”

The Beck PR push has been in full effect over the last week. Here’s some other profiles/previews:

New York Daily News
Miami Herald
Broadcasting & Cable
Atlanta Journal Consistution
Tampa Tribune
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Akron Beacon Journal

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