Although reality TV star Phil Robertson’s comments on race and homosexuality made him less attractive to advertisers, they only made him more attractive to Glenn Beck.
The future of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” was cast in doubt with Robertson’s placement on indefinite hiatus by the cable network after the publication of the cast member’s comments in a GQ magazine profile.
Robertson told the magazine’s reporter that black people seemed happier living under Jim Crow segregation laws and compared LGBT people to thieves, prostitutes and adulterers, and his employer suspended him the same day the profile was published online.
Beck offered Robertson and his family, who also appear in the popular reality show, a program on his online Blaze TV network.
“[All the other networks] will fold to pressure,” Beck said. “They will all fold to sponsors. They will all fold to money because they are all in over their eyeballs are debt … the only reason why Phil was put on hiatus and not the rest is because it is a money-printing machine.”
He said the Robertsons would likely end their involvement with A&E over its treatment of the family patriarch, and he suggested they each call GQ with a simple message: “I agree with Phil.”
“You will either be out, or you will be the most powerful people the country has ever seen on television,” Beck said. “You already have all of the juice you’re ever gonna get … And if you take a stand and they fire you … we’ll be on the phone.”
Phil Robertson seemed to indicate “Duck Dynasty,” which is entering its fifth season next month, may have already run its course.
“Let’s face it,” he told GQ. “Three, four, five years, we’re out of here. You know what I’m saying? It’s a TV show. This thing ain’t gonna last forever. No way.”
But now, Beck said, there’s more at stake than a simple reality show about a close-knit family who owns and operates a successful business selling duck calls.
“Make your stand. You will never have a better chance. And quite honestly, you’re our best shot as people,” Beck said. “If we don’t get people to wake up to the fact that this is fascism, that we are not allowed to have another opinion … they’re never going to wake up. And you’re our best shot.”
(Sources: Blaze TV and RawStory.com)