Mercury Confidential: Which GBTV staffer owned a sandwich shop before becoming a producer?

July 17, 2012

Writer

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at Mercury Radio Arts? Just how do all of Glenn’s crazy ideas get done? Does anyone ever get a chance to sleep? Well, over the next few months we are going to take you inside MRA, giving you the inside scoop on everything from publishing to special events, 1791 to Markdown to GBTV. We will be interviewing members of our New York, Columbus, and Dallas staff, bringing you all the info, so you can know what it’s really like to work for Glenn. Part 1 (Kevin Balfe – Publishing), Part 2 (Liz Julis – GBTV/Special Events), Part 3 (Joel Cheatwood: CCO & President of TheBlaze)

What does deli ownership and television operations have in common? A lot – at least according to Eric Pearce, Vice President of Television Operations at TheBlaze.

“When I was 21, my father and I bought a deli together, and we ended up owning it for three and a half years,” Pearce explained.

“I know you can’t compare a television show to egg sandwiches, but the theory behind it, you can,” he promised. “When someone comes into a restaurant to buy breakfast, they want to know what they are getting every day. And they come back – repeat business is what makes it work because you are delivering a quality product. It’s the same on television. If you deliver a quality product night in and night out, you are going to be successful. While it is a very tough comparison, some of the groundwork there makes sense.”

Business experience aside, one thing Pearce does not miss about owning a deli: the lifestyle. “You’re up at five in the morning, and you don’t get home until seven o’clock at night. You have just enough time to eat dinner, take a shower, and then you are exhausted because you have been on your feet all day long running around. You smell like bacon and onions every day.”

While this certainly sounds like a long day, anyone who knows Pearce knows that his life as of late hasn’t been any less hectic. Remember when GBTV broadcasted the Restoring Courage events live from Israel? Pearce was responsible for making sure that actually happened. How about when GBTV officially launched just two weeks after that? Pearce had a pretty big role in that too. And what about when Glenn decided to relocate his entire broadcast to Dallas, Texas? You guessed it, Pearce oversaw that also, which meant working straight through Christmas and New Years to get the studio up and running in time. The timeline for that particular project: 45 days.

Pearce, who first met Glenn at CNN, took his time to get to where he is now. “Right after high school I went to local college,” he said. “I thought I wanted to be a stock broker, but I ended up failing my Series 7 test. Thank God because if I ever ended up like one of those financial people I would have killed myself. Eventually when we sold the deli, I went back to school to get my degree, and then too many years after that I did get my degree. It only took eight and a half years to finish college, which is a long time, but I did it.”

Pearce graduated college and took a job as a freelancer at CNN, where he worked for five and a half years. It was his work ethic that ultimately set him apart from his peers. “I took any job. I volunteered for everything. The worst shifts – I always worked the Sunday night and then the Monday morning. I did whatever it took because I wanted to learn, and I knew I was behind,” Pearce said.

Pearce paid his dues on the news desk for a few months. “I started on the news desk, where I kind of gained my chops in the industry,” he explained. “I got there at five in the morning handing out newspapers to reporters, taking staples of paper, shuffling things, printing things, escorting guests. So I did all of the kind of grunt work there.”

He was later offered a staff position at CNN’s Showbiz Tonight, where he worked for a year, before getting a call that would ultimately prove career changing. “I don’t know exactly when, but I got a call from a producer I had worked with, and he said, ‘Hey, I think I have a producing job for you.’ And I thought that’s great, I could use a change.”

Turns out the producing job was for a brand new daily show that would be hosted by a radio personality named Glenn Beck. “So my first question was: who is Glenn Beck? I had no idea who he was,” Pearce said. “I was shown the pilot of their show, and it was like wow, this guy is funny. His approach was so much different – something you have never seen before.”

He stayed with Glenn’s show for the next two years, but when Glenn left for Fox News, Pearce, unfortunately, couldn’t follow. “I stayed behind at CNN. I was contracted, so I couldn’t leave. I stayed and launched two other shows for the network after that. But after the two years I had with Glenn, it just wasn’t the same.”

Pearce called Chris Balfe, Chief Operating Officer of Mercury Radio Arts, to see if there was a job opening. “I called Chris and said, ‘I have to leave CNN. I have to make a move. It’s just not the same. What do you have for me?’” he recalled.

Pearce joined Mercury in January 2010.The problem was, at the time, Mercury didn’t have too much of a need in the way of production, so Pearce found himself with a job, but not a whole lot to do. “When I first got here, they really had no job title or job description for me. They were just like ‘Come here and figure it out.’”

Like most people at Mercury, what he was hired to do and what he is doing now is considerably different. “Our company has grown tremendously since then, but I remember those first three days. I started on a Wednesday, and that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I was surfing the internet, I was on Facebook, and I was doing all this stuff because there was no work for me to do,” Pearce said laughing.

“I would give anything just to have one of those days back because I remember that next week – I don’t know what it was – but somebody had an idea and that was when it just started this whole thing. I have not had a slow day in the office since those first three days. It’s amazing how things change so fast.”

It really is incredible how quickly things change because Pearce now finds himself at the helm of television operations for one of the most successful online streaming networks in the world. While it seems like the launch of GBTV went from zero to sixty virtually overnight, the groundwork was laid long before Glenn ever decided to break out on his own.

“Shortly after I started we decided we wanted to give Glenn’s Insiders, some of his closest fans, more access to Glenn so they could see what happens behind the scenes,” Pearce explained. “We set up Insider Extreme where we started broadcasting his radio show every morning, and then we went on to add the Fourth Hour with Pat and Stu.”

That addition alone upgraded Insider Extreme from a single webcam broadcast to a six camera, four hour show that began to pave the way for what is now GBTV. “Figuring all of that out was new to me, but we figured it out as we went along, and it all worked,” he said. “At some point it just became this big operation, and it just seemed natural that Insider Extreme had to switch over from four hours of streaming live video to a streaming network. Insider Extreme really did lay the groundwork for GBVT.”

When Glenn decided to leave network television and start his own network, Pearce was 100 percent on board. “We spend all of this time producing this show for someone else. Why don’t we just produce it for ourselves? And having full control over our programming cuts out the red tape,” he said. “We can control the quality. We can control the budgets. We can do whatever we want. And it just seemed to make sense. We just knew we were supposed to grow into this network.”

Transitioning from a six camera webcast to an online streaming network was no easy task. From an operations perspective, Pearce needed to find a studio to rent, equipment to use, and a staff efficient enough to deal with all of these moving pieces. And he didn’t have much time to do it. As is customary, Glenn couldn’t help but add one more piece to the puzzle – he wanted to broadcast his Restoring Courage events in Israel on GBTV, just two weeks before the official launch of the network.

For Pearce, this meant transplanting a large portion of staff to Israel for a several weeks, and putting everything he had been working toward all summer to the ultimate test. Oh, and did I mention Pearce was dealing with all this and planning a wedding at the same time?

“It is true I got married around the launch date of GBTV,” Pearce said with a laugh. “When Glenn picked the launch date and they said September 12, 9/12, that’s the day, it seemed like the right fit. What wasn’t perfect for me was I was getting married two weeks later. I am running operations for this brand new network and then week three I am going to disappear get married and then disappear on my honeymoon for two weeks.”

Between the GBTV launch and the events in Israel, Pearce didn’t spend much time at home that summer. “I had these two projects coming up and a wedding to plan the whole time. You can imagine what it was like when I had to tell my then finance, ‘Oh yeah, I have to go to Israel this summer.’ Didn’t go over that well at first, but in the end she understood. She knows that I am passionate about what I do, so she puts up with a lot. I am so grateful to Marlaina for that.”

After getting GBTV up and running, Glenn threw yet another wrench into the plans when he decided to move his broadcast to Dallas, Texas. Beyond the logistical problems involved with managing staffs in two different states, Pearce had to virtually start over and build this new studio from the ground up.

“I was more surprised when Glenn said he wanted to move to Texas than I was when he said he wanted to start a video network,” Pearce said. After finding a property and having the deal fall through, Pearce found himself with just over a month to get something built that would allow Glenn to broadcast live from Dallas on January 2, 2012.

“I remember the day, it was November 15, 2011, and Glenn said to me, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, we are going to have to find a new place to build the studio, and it is going to take a little bit longer.’ I said, ‘How do you feel about staying in NY the first two weeks of next year, so we can get your broadcast on, while we are building something down in TX?’ And he turned to me slowly, looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘I am doing television from TX on January 2.’ And at that point, he turned around and walked away,” Pearce recalled.

In New York, studios are built on every street corner, but Dallas, Texas is a very different situation. “This was a little bit of a challenge to find a place that was going to fill Glenn’s needs and desires,” Pearce said. “We found a place that could house Glenn’s vision. We found a production company that was going to help us deliver and build Glenn’s vision, which was key. And we had roughly 45 days to build it. What we pulled off in that short period of time was nothing short of a miracle.”

Pearce and his team worked through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years to get it done in time. “We needed to build an HD control room. We needed to build a studio. We needed to build a radio studio, all at once, at the end of the year, over vacation. I am proud to say we did it. I mean we had some improvements to make after that to make things more permanent, but we are very proud of what we were able to pull off in that short period of time.”

Pearce sees the upcoming merger of GBTV and TheBlaze as the perfect opportunity for both divisions to capitalize on their great resources. “I do think the re-brand is a very good idea. I think it will allow us to grow and expand our reach, but maintain the same quality and the same mission that Glenn wants to see on the network.”

Despite all of the things he has dealt with over the last couple of years, Pearce’s favorite moment came not too long after he first started at Mercury, during Restoring Honor in Washington D.C.

“It was the night before Divine Destiny at the Kennedy Center, and Glenn wanted to go meet-and-greet all the people waiting on line to get tickets,” he explained. “I showed up there with a camera, and I am filming him talking to people, meeting people. It was just this amazing moment of Glenn interacting with his fans.”

After the meet-and-greet, Glenn decided he wanted to go back to the Lincoln Memorial – for what was probably the fiftieth time that week. “We are getting in the cars to leave, and Glenn turns around and says, ‘I want to go to the Lincoln Memorial.’ Meanwhile, it is ten or eleven o’clock at night, pitch black, but he wanted to go to the Lincoln Memorial.”

At this point a crowd had gathered at the Memorial in hopes of securing a front row view of the event, and when they saw Glenn arrive, the crowd went wild. “Glenn noticed them, and they noticed Glenn, and he goes over and is talking to them. There was cheering and he thanked everyone for showing up. All of a sudden, the crowd starts to sing God Bless America.”

It was a beautiful moment, and Pearce was glad to be there getting it all on tape. At some point, Glenn got pulled away from the group. When Pearce looked down at his camera, his heart sank – the audio had not been recording.

“I guess about three quarters of the way through the crowd singing I realized that the audio wasn’t recording on the camera that I had. And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Glenn was here watching this happen. He sees me with the camera, and I am going to come back with a video of them singing the song without audio?! I am dead.”

It seemed like a lost cause at that point, but Pearce had a plan. “I went back to the crowd, and I said, ‘Hey guys, you know, that was so good. Could we do that again? I want to get a different angle.’ And they were all like, ‘Sure! No problem!’”

“I made sure the audio was working, and they did it again. So the crowd had no idea I had a camera problem. Glenn had no idea I had a camera problem because he would have been disappointed. So I am glad that all worked out,” Pearce said with a laugh.

Problem solving at its finest – something Pearce has proven time and time again he is very good at. It probably has something to do with why he keeps getting these mammoth projects thrown his way. At least he doesn’t smell like bacon and onions anymore.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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