Head of Glenn Beck’s Media Empire Quits as The Blaze Burns Down

[cajuncocoa]

On this day of bad news, I thought this might be a bit of a bright spot if true...let's hope it is. I would rejoice if this MF's "empire" burned down.


In what knowledgeable observers say is a sign of increasing turmoil in Glenn Beck’s troubled media empire, Beck’s longtime mentor and corporate executive, Kraig Kitchin, has quit as CEO of The Blaze.


Kitchin’s replacement, Stewart Padveen, a digital startup entrepreneur who joined Beck’s company last summer, will be the fourth leader of The Blaze since late 2014.


Kitchin, 54, who took over operations of Beck’s conservative-leaning subscription digital and cable television enterprise last June—after two previous CEOs abruptly left in the space of six months—is resigning along with two other senior executives: Jeremy Price, director of advertising sales, and Liz Julis, director of marketing.


Both are based in New York, 1,500 miles removed from corporate headquarters in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
Several other key employees, including at least two senior producers based in The Blaze’s shrinking New York operation, are expected to follow them out the door.
More http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/29/head-of-glenn-beck-s-media-empire-quits-as-the-blaze-burns-down.html

[Kords21]

Hope this is the beginning of the end of this pied piper

[Brian4Liberty]

Interesting. It seems that Schreiber has sacrificed market share and profits for "editorial" control and less popular content.


According to multiple sources, Kitchin—who commuted from his home in Los Angeles to Dallas and New York—took the CEO job on an interim basis with the condition that Schreiber would agree not to interfere in The Blaze, an agreement that Kitchin realized was continually being breached. According to people familiar with the situation, Schreiber’s alleged meddling in Kitchin’s operation ultimately became intolerable.
...
Named president in April 2015 of Mercury Radio Arts—of which The Blaze is a subsidiary, all of it majority-owned by Beck—Schreiber is said to have a penchant for interfering in areas beyond his expertise, namely the staffing and content of The Blaze’s news and opinion site and its television production operation.
...
Schreiber’s alleged intrusion is said to have also figured in the departure in June of then-Blaze chief executive Betsy Morgan, an experienced digital media executive who previously ran CBS News’s digital operations, helped grow The Huffington Post, and built TheBlaze.com into a news and aggregation site that—in November 2014—attracted 29 million unique visitors per month.

Morgan—ironically, according to sources—had recommended Schreiber to Beck and helped secure his initial position with the company, shouldering a vague responsibility for “strategy and special projects.”

A religious man who practices Orthodox Judaism, Schreiber quickly hit it off with Beck, a devout Mormon convert.

Morgan had replaced Beck’s longtime CEO Chris Balfe, who abruptly exited the company in December 2014, along with fellow exec Joel Cheatwood, as Schreiber was gaining more prominence and influence.
...
Stewart Padveen, Schreiber’s personal friend and “mentor” (as Schreiber describes him in a LinkedIn endorsement), will assume control of The Blaze effective Monday.
...
Schreiber, a digital startup entrepreneur in his early forties, is a controversial and mysterious figure within Mercury Radio Arts. According to colleagues, he has referred to himself as a “diehard Glenn Beck fan” who, after years of living in Israel, relocated to New York, talked his way into Beck’s confidence, and showed up as a “trusted advisor,” as Beck has called him, in the fall of 2014.

[pcosmar]

He'll cry.
Faux will take him back.

[Badger Paul]

"Schreiber, a digital startup entrepreneur in his early forties, is a controversial and mysterious figure within Mercury Radio Arts. According to colleagues, he has referred to himself as a “diehard Glenn Beck fan” who, after years of living in Israel, relocated to New York, talked his way into Beck’s confidence, and showed up as a “trusted advisor,” as Beck has called him, in the fall of 2014."

In other words, a con artist....

Hope Beck has a parachute plan when finds his money is all gone.

[RJB]

Burn it down!

[rp08orbust]

Maybe Ted Cruz would run his empire.

[RDM]

Let the whole NeoCon empire including its mouth pieces burn to the ground.