Last week Fox News' Glenn Beck took a week off for vacation, and then returned on Monday. In his absence Glenn Beck was hosted each day by Andrew Napolitano, except last Friday when Fox News interrupted Glenn Beck in favor of breaking news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami catastrophe in Japan.

The good news for Beck is that he was able to take some time off from work. The bad news for Beck is that ratings-wise, Fox News did just fine without him. Coming in the wake of the recent New York Times report suggesting Fox News executives might be looking ahead to cable news lineup that does not include Beck once his contract expire at the end of the year, coupled with Beck's soft 2011 ratings, news that Glenn Beck basically drew the same numbers of viewers without Beck as the host probably isn't good news for him or his agent.

Not that long ago when Beck was off work and didn't host his show, the ratings reflected that and a smaller audience tuned into Fox News at 5 p.m. But not last week.

For those four rated days, the Napolitano-hosted program averaged 1.83 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The week prior to that, the Beck-hosted show drew an audience of 1.98 million, which meant there was just an eight percent dip in the audience while Beck was on vacation. And for additional context, during the entire month of January, Glenn Beck averaged 1.76 million viewers, his worst month ever at Fox.

Considering that Fox News finds it almost impossible to find a single nationally recognized advertiser who's willing to be associated with the program thanks to its controversial host, and the fact that the channel might be able to get roughly equal ratings without Beck at the 5 p.m. time slot, might only add to the possibility of a Beck-free lineup in the future?