NEW YORK – Glenn Beck later this year will end his Fox News Channel talk show, which has sunk in the ratings and has suffered from an advertiser boycott. Fox and Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, said Wednesday they will stay in business creating other projects for Fox television and digital, starting with some documentaries Beck is preparing. Beck was a quick burn on Fox News Channel. Almost immediately after joining the network in January 2009, he doubled the ratings at his afternoon time slot. Fans found his conservative populism entertaining, while Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert described Beck’s “crank up the crazy and rip off the knob” moments. He was popular with tea party activists and drew thousands of people to the National Mall in Washington last August for a “restoring honor” rally. Yet some of his statements were getting him in trouble, and critics appealed to advertisers to boycott his show last summer after he said President Barack Obama had “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Beck said that he went to Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and CEO, in January to discuss ways they could continue to work together without the daily show. “Half of the headlines say he’s been canceled,” Ailes said. “The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.” Beck said he noted on his show Tuesday “how many times can I tell the (George) Soros story,” referring to the liberal donor Beck has made a target of attacks. “We felt Glenn brought additional information, a unique perspective, a certain amount of passion and insight to the channel and he did,” Ailes said. “But that story of what’s going on and why America is in trouble today, I think he told that story as well as could be told. Whether you can just keep telling that story or not … we’re not so sure.” Beck, who outlined on Wednesday’s show his reasons for believing that “we’re heading into deep and treacherous waters,” told his viewers at the end of the show that his Fox talk show would conclude. “I will continue to tell the story and I will be showing other ways for us to connect,” he said. More than 400 Fox advertisers told the company they did not want their commercials on Beck’s show. Beck’s advertisers were dominated by financial services firms, many touting gold as an investment. Ailes dismissed the financial impact of the boycott but expressed some frustration with it. “Advertisers who get weak-kneed because some idiot on a blog site writes to them and says we need to stifle speech, I get a little frustrated by that,” he said. One of Beck’s most prominent critics — David Brock, founder of the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America — said that “the only surprise is that it took Fox News months to reach this decision.” “Fox News Channel clearly understands that Beck’s increasingly erratic behavior is a liability to their ratings and their bottom line, and we are glad to see them take this action,” said James Rucker, executive director of ColorofChange.org, which organized the advertiser boycott. Beck was a lightning rod for other critics, as well. The Jewish Funds for Justice organized a petition drive last fall to get Beck fired for what it called his misuse of Nazis and the Holocaust phrases against political opponents. Viewers had begun turning away. Beck’s 5 p.m. ET show averaged 2.7 million viewers during the first three months of 2010, and was at just under 2 million for the same period this year, the Nielsen Co. said. His decline was sharper among younger viewers sought by advertisers. Increasingly, the show began to be dominated by Beck standing in front of a chalk board giving his theories about the world’s troubles. However, Beck has built a powerful brand for himself through a daily radio show, best-selling books and personal appearances. Mercury Radio Arts is expanding and a key Fox executive, Joel Cheatwood, is joining the company later this month. Beck’s company created and operates a news and opinion website, TheBlaze.com. For $9.95 a month, he offers fans access to “Insider Extreme,” a website that beams documentaries, Beck personal appearances and a video simulcast of Beck’s daily radio show, with an extra hour featuring Beck cohorts. Beck said ratings for his television show were not an issue, noting that “we have buried the competition in every sense.” His supporters believe that the recent decline is more a reflection that ratings were abnormally high early last year. “Call CNN and MSNBC and ask them if they’d like to have Glenn’s ratings at 5 in the afternoon,” Ailes said. Ailes emphasized that Fox and Beck will continue to work together. “We like each other,” he said in a dual interview with Beck. “We’re not drawing pictures of each other on the walls, having staff fights and stealing each other’s food out of the refrigerator or any of that stuff.” ___ Fox is owned by News Corp. Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook

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VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has long championed organ transplants, but don’t expect an organ donation from him. The Vatican says his body belongs to the whole church. While the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has possessed an organ donor card since the 1970s when he lived in Germany, it was rendered void when he became pope in 2005, his secretary said. Monsignor Georg Gaenswein addressed the issue in a letter to a German doctor who has been using the fact that Benedict possessed a donor card to recruit other donors. Vatican Radio reported on the letter in a German language broadcast this week. Gaenswein sought to put the matter to rest, saying any references to the now invalid document are mistaken. Polish Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, head of the Vatican’s health office, told La Repubblica newspaper that it was understandable that a pope’s body remains intact because it belongs to the entire church. “It is also understandable in view of possible future veneration,” he said, referring to future sainthood. “This doesn’t take anything away from the validity and the beauty of the gift of organ donation.” In a 2008 speech, Benedict lamented the shortage of organs for transplants, but denounced any selling of organs as immoral. Until the last century papal organs were removed — not for transplants but to make embalming more durable. The organs of 22 popes are preserved as relics in the church of Saints Anastasio and Vincent near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. The custom of removing the organs was abolished by Pope Pius X in the early 1900s. The collection includes the liver, spleen and pancreas of the popes. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, the Vatican denied that some of his organs would be sent to his native Poland as relics. He is buried at the Vatican. Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook

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BEVERLY HILLS, California – Queen Elizabeth II’s dad, Albert — the gentle, stammering Duke of York — never was meant to be king. And from Hollywood’s early honors this season, a drama based on his life never seemed destined as heir-apparent at the Academy Awards. Yet “The King’s Speech” took a step closer to the best-picture crown Tuesday, leading the Oscars with 12 nominations and gaining momentum against the online chronicle “The Social Network,” which had previously ruled the awards season. Hollywood’s top prize on Feb. 27 now seems like a two-picture duel between stories about a monarch who lives in terror of a 1930s tool of mass communication — the radio microphone — and a college kid who helped define the Internet era by inventing Facebook. Also nominated for best picture are the Western “True Grit,” second with 10 total nominations; the psychosexual thriller “Black Swan”; the boxing drama “The Fighter”; the science-fiction blockbuster “Inception”; the lesbian-family tale “The Kids Are All Right”; the survival story “127 Hours”; the animated smash “Toy Story 3″; and the Ozarks crime thriller “Winter’s Bone.” “The King’s Speech” is a pageant in the truest Oscar sense, with pomp, ceremony and history like past best-picture winners “The Last Emperor,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “A Man for All Seasons” and “Shakespeare in Love.” It’s also an intimate, personal tale of love and kinship as royal Albert (best-actor front-runner Colin Firth) is buoyed by the devotion of his wife (supporting-actress nominee Helena Bonham Carter) and makes an unlikely friend out of a commoner, his wily speech therapist (supporting-actor contender Geoffrey Rush). “It’s a very, very human story. After all, how many of us are so blessed that we go through life without having to overcome some kind of personal obstacle?” said “The King’s Speech” writer David Seidler, who grew up with a stammer himself and earned a nomination for original screenplay. Seidler said young people who were reluctant to see a historical film “end up absolutely loving it and wanting to see it again, because they understand the emotions of being teased, being bullied, being marginalized, and they really understand the power of a supportive friendship.” Meantime, “The Social Network” seems like a film completely in the here and now as Harvard computer genius Mark Zuckerberg (best-actor nominee Jesse Eisenberg) reinvents the art of keeping in touch with the viral growth of Facebook, whose half a billion users stay connected with friends online. But the motivations at the core of the film are ancient as Zuckerberg battles old friends and associates over the Web site’s riches. “It is a timeless story, one with themes as old as storytelling itself: of friendship and loyalty, of betrayal, power, class, jealousy,” said Aaron Sorkin, a nominee for adapted screenplay for “The Social Network.” “These are things that Aeschylus would have written about or Shakespeare would have written about. And it’s just lucky for me that neither of those guys were available, so I got to write about it.” Along with Firth, other acting favorites claimed Oscar slots, including supporting actor nominee Christian Bale as a former boxer whose career unravels amid drugs and crime in “The Fighter.” The best-actress field shapes up as a two-woman race between Natalie Portman as a ballerina losing her grip on reality in “Black Swan” and Annette Bening as a lesbian mom in “The Kids Are All Right.” Firth, Bale, Portman and Bening all won Golden Globes for their performances. The supporting-actress Oscar could prove the most competitive among acting prizes. Melissa Leo won the Globe for “The Fighter” as the domineering matriarch of a boxing family. But she faces strong challenges from that film’s co-star Amy Adams as a boxer’s tough girlfriend and 14-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as a girl who rides along with a U.S. marshal to track her father’s killer in “True Grit.” “The Social Network” won best drama at the Globes and was named best film by key critics groups, positioning it as the early Oscar favorite. “The King’s Speech” pulled an upset last weekend by beating “The Social Network” for top honors at the Producers Guild of America Awards, whose winner often goes on to claim the best-picture Oscar. Firth’s Albert, known as Bertie to his family, inherited the British throne in 1936 after his older brother abdicated. The reluctant new monarch took the name of his father and reigned as King George VI, continuing his struggle to overcome his speech impediment at a crucial time, as his subjects looked to their ruler for inspiration amid the stirrings of World War II. The film offers up history as rip-roaring entertainment, with surprising laughs and an uplifting message. “It’s incredibly positive, and I think that is why people are responding,” said Bonham Carter. “It’s also just helpful to see how somebody can be fundamentally helped by another human being. He’s pulled out of this deep, dark hole, and how we can all, if we surrender ourselves, can be helped by somebody else. The best-picture field is a mix of solid commercial successes such as “The King’s Speech,” “The Social Network” and “Black Swan,” huge blockbusters such as “Toy Story 3″ and “Inception,” and modest earners such as “127 Hours” and “Winter’s Bone.” The box-office results range from $400 million domestically for “Toy Story 3,” which also is the favorite to win the animated-feature award, to just $6 million for “Winter’s Bone,” a tiny-budgeted film that won the top prize at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and now has earned four Oscar nominations, including acting honors for Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes. “This feels crazy. I don’t mean to sound like disavowing the film in any way, but it’s like, are they sure?” said “Winter’s Bone” director and co-writer Debra Granik, who earned an adapted-screenplay nomination. “There are still statistically very rare instances of a very small film being able to have a life that could be communal, that could be part of a national discussion.” ___ AP reporters Sandy Cohen, Christy Lemire and John Rogers contributed to this report. ___ Online: http://www.oscars.org Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook

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