When Fox News talk powerhouse Bill O’Reilly announced several years ago that he was going to launch a talk radio show, some conservatives were angry, saying he was going to compete with and hurt conservative talk show radio icon Rush Limbaugh. But now the news sweeping the talk show and media world: O’Reilly will give up his highly rated radio show.
So in the battle for the conservative radio icons the question now arises: in the radio battle, did Rush “win?”
Or is it a sign that O’Reilly’s lower rated MSNBC nemesis Keith Olbermann’s show has shown significant growth and that O’Reilly has decided to pick and choose while, at the same time, reducing his brutal workload? In recent ratings, Olbermann has beat his CNN competition. Meanwhile, a controversy has raged over just how well the liberal MSNBC talk show host has been doing against O’Reilly.
Businessweek has this short item:
Fox News Channel said late Thursday that popular cable TV host Bill O’Reilly will step down as the host of his syndicated talk radio show early next year.
The “The Radio Factor” — which began in 2002 and runs on more than 400 radio stations, as well as satellite operator Sirius XM Radio Inc. — will end in the first quarter of 2009, Fox said.
In a statement, O’Reilly said the workload has become too much, adding, “I can no longer give both TV and radio the time they deserve.”
In an interview with the New York Daily News, O’Reilly — a talk show host who is considered conservative but has on some issue broken with and infuriated some on the right — says that although he is reportedly quitting radio at the top of his game, but knew he was going to take heart for not doing the kind of show Limbaugh did and has had to increasingly deal with a pesky thing called “the Internet.” Some excerpts:
Nationally, O’Reilly’s radio show is carried on 430 stations, including WOR (710 AM) in New York. Talkers magazine estimates his weekly audience at more than 3.5 million, putting him in the national top 10, and while no official figures are available on advertising, executives close to the show described it as very profitable.
O’Reilly said he had “a great time” doing the radio show, and will miss the listeners.
“Radio is more intimate,” he said. “TV has more power because of the images, but you can say things on radio you wouldn’t say on TV. It’s less formal.
“The one thing I found about radio listeners is you can’t talk down to them. You have to respect them.”
He said he also found that radio listeners don’t just want a host who preaches their viewpoint.
“I knew my show couldn’t be ideological,” he said. “Going up against [Rush] Limbaugh, that would be suicidal. Why would a listener who’s already got Rush turn to someone else to hear the same things?
“So I was doing a show that was fact-based. It was more news/talk. And we were very competitive. In some cities, like Boston and St. Louis, we beat Limbaugh outright.”
A big challenge for both radio and TV now, said O’Reilly, is drawing eyes and ears away from the Internet.
“On the Internet, everyone produces their own show,” he said. “On radio or TV, I’m the producer. So I have to be compelling enough to pull someone away from his own show – which means I have to give him something he can’t get on his own.”
Some will dismiss it as spin, but O’Reilly is probably correct. Blog Talk Radio is increasing popular, satellite radio has carved out a market and O’Reilly could find that, as he heads into 2009, if he’s more sympathetic to the new President Barack Obama he’ll lose some of the GOPers that demand total opposition.
So going into 2009 there is an issue of whether broadcast talk radio will face new challenges, particularly from the Internet, and whether conservative talk will face a shakedown…or thrive with Democrat in the White House.
On the other hand a new bio of Fox News bigwig Rupert Murdoch contends the media giant “absolutely despises” O’Reilly.
What to make of it? O’Reilly is not a great image for Fox since he’s of the red-faced school of talk show. In some interviews, O’Reilly displays his solid news background, showing the potential he had if he had remained a more lowly — and low paid — reporter instead of morphing into a TV personality and later into a conservative talk show host. He says he’s not really a conservative, but is widely perceived as such. He says he’s an independent, but comes down on the side of the GOP on most, but not all, issues.
Yet, O’Reilly’s big personality — some call it bullying — gets and keeps an audience, and his selection of topics often hits a nerve with many viewers (every Christmas he does his rant about “the war against Christmas” and sparks copy cat talk show radio host riffs, blog posts and newspaper op-ed pieces). He’s not pure enough for some Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity purists, who want a host who largely supports whatever the RNC advocates. More often than not, he comes out on the same side as Limbaugh.
And he shares one other quality with Limbaugh: he is also someone who understands broadcasting and is an excellent broadcasting talent. Ideology, lung power, and veins popping out of a face aren’t enough to get big ratings. Many conservative and progressive talk shows try the bombast but lack the broadcasting talent.
But he is above all a cash cow for Fox News. So his decision to put his energies — and unrelenting focus — into his cable program probably means more $$$$ for Fox News. And for Rupert Murdoch.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.