Comment: Beck has been planning this departure for almost a year

He is going to attempt a "Howard Stern" or "Oprah" in trying to get his viewers to follow him and pay for it. He also owns a substantial mailing list (that FOX wanted - sorely.) That mailing list alone is worth TONs of money and can be leveraged to subsidize the expansion of his company Mercury Radio Arts.

Remember he made a cryptic announcement shortly after launching THE BLAZE that he would be doing something "counter intutitive" but that he couldn't really tell anyone what that was yet? Remember? Then all the Buzz about he and FOX parting ways because he was just too much of a "Truth Speaker" started sputtering out of the wires. Beck's camp also went for a huge "negative PR campaign (against Beck)" there for a while too. Any mention in the press is good in certain instances. Beck doesn't care...so long as you are looking at him and his site at this point because he has to translate his viewership into hard numbers right now...

Oh and his viewership was down lately...but ALL OF CABLE NEWS PROGRAMING IS DOWN and will continue to go down. Beck is making a calculated business move.