Back in December, it was announced that Glenn Beck and Mark Levin were teaming up by merging Beck's TheBlaze and Levin's CRTV (Conservative Review TV) to create a news conservative-media platform called Blaze Media.

According to Beck, Blaze Media is expected to serve a broad and ideologically diverse audience, including conservatives, libertarians, and constitutionalists.  He predicts that this new multimedia empire will reach 165 million people through cable TV, digital platforms, and social media. Beck further adds: "Our hosts will have differences, but we share a common belief in free expression, honest discourse and a society founded in the principles of the Bill of Rights."

Levin is equally enthusiastic about this new venture, saying: "Tens of millions of Americans have had it with the biased, ideologically-driven mainstream media outlets that sanctimoniously advance their own agenda under the guise of 'news' and 'journalism.'  Conservatives actually believe in a free press and the rest of the Constitution."  He adds that the intention of the merger is "to further expand and offer the public an alternative to liberal media groupthink."

The merger began by immediately allowing subscribers to CRTV and TheBlaze Premium to have access to the digital streaming content of the other's talent, including over 30 original shows.  (As a point of record, the subscription cost for BlazeTV is $99 per year.)  Blaze Media's TV lineup will include popular conservative programming like The Glenn Beck Program, LevinTV, Louder with Crowder, The News and Why It Matters, and America (hosted by Eric Bolling). 

Critics say Beck needed this merger to rescue his financially troubled TheBlaze, which was suffering from plunging revenue, a loss of paid subscribers, and a mass layoff of some 20 percent of the staff.

It is hard to say how Blaze Media will do.  On the surface, such a conservative multimedia platform would be what the country needs to help counter the fake news of the liberal media.  However, many people like me are turned off by Beck's preachy style and are wary over his erratic behavior.  Even with those flaws, Beck can still be persuasive...and he does have a following.  Whether his critics care to admit it or not, Beck's opinions sway many.  That, combined with the fact that the man is a loose cannon, makes him possibly dangerous to the MAGA agenda, which is a long-term project.

Look at Beck's position on President Trump.  He was once solidly in the NeverTrump camp, throwing incendiary verbal bombs at Trump at every opportunity.  He even got his radio show suspended by SiriusXM for a week due to an implied threat made against the life of Donald Trump by one of his guests, author Brad Thor.  But then Beck had an epiphany and morphed into a rabid Trump-supporter, telling Sean Hannity that if Trump doesn't win re-election, "We are officially at the end of the country as we know it." 

And now just this week, Beck is praising Rep. Justin Amash, the sole Republican in Congress calling for Trump's impeachment.  In a tweet, Beck is encouraging Amash to run for president in 2024, saying, "Justin Amash is the man on the right we have waited for my whole life."  Who is "we," Kemosabe?  It doesn't include me. 

Blaze Media has the potential to be a good thing.  But with Beck in the mix, anything can happen.