Yesterday, TVNewser reported that the February ratings for Glenn Beck's Fox News show dropped 26 percent from last February, and that a “person close to Mr. Beck” suggested that the decline was related to a similar drop in ratings for Your World with Neil Cavuto, which precedes Beck's program:

Mr Beck's television audience was down 40 per cent in January, but this reflected a similar decline for the preceding show's audience and Mr Beck still beat the combined audiences of MSNBC and CNN, the cable rivals to Fox News, this person said.

As TVNewser pointed out, this explanation doesn't wash:

Of course, last February he had FNC's second most popular show, after “The O'Reilly Factor.” Last month, he slipped to fourth. And if the “person close to Mr Beck” is trying to claim that his lead-in of “Your World with Neil Cavuto” is to blame (despite the fact that it's really a different audience anyway) Cavuto is only down -13% in total viewers and down -15% in younger viewers.

It doesn't also doesn't jibe with Beck's repeated paeans to “personal responsibility,” like when he praised his audience on September 2, 2010, telling them: “You're not into blaming those who came before you for everything that's wrong in life”:

“Personal responsibility” indeed.