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(60,536 posts) Tue Mar 26, 2019, 05:16 PM Mar 2019

Bill O'Reilly heading back to radio

By Erik Wemple
Media critic
March 26 at 12:33 PM

Bill O’Reilly apparently hungers for a bit more exposure than what he gets out of BillOReilly.com.

The fallen host of “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News is making another foray into radio. Via a deal with syndicator Key Networks, he’ll be churning out a 15-minute daily program named “The O’Reilly Update.” According to a release, the show “cuts through the anonymous sources and phony stories dominating today’s news cycle and brings O’Reilly’s trademark ‘no spin’ analysis to listeners across the U.S. in a high-impact format made for appointment listening.”

O’Reilly is familiar with the medium. He hosted “The Radio Factor” from the headquarters of Fox News between 2002 and 2009, spraying the airwaves with the same viewpoints that he offered each night on “The O’Reilly Factor.” The radio brand, however, didn’t rule the industry the way the TV brand did. O’Reilly bailed on the enterprise, citing workload. “The radio industry was too competitive, and [Rush] Limbaugh’s show was too strong and entrenched,” wrote former “Radio Factor” associate producer Joe Muto in his book “An Atheist in the FOXhole.” “Ultimately, what killed O’Reilly’s radio show was O’Reilly himself. Or, rather, his indifference. The show was a lot of extra work for him, and not much payoff.”

But the work-payoff formula for O’Reilly has changed since April 2017. It was then that O’Reilly was forced out of his Fox News job after the New York Times reported that he and the company had reached settlements over sexual harassment and mistreatment. The details were startling: Women who received settlements “have complained about a wide range of behavior, including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating,” the New York Times reported. After the story and a social-media backlash, advertisers deserted “The O’Reilly Factor.” The host took a vacation and never returned.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/26/bill-oreilly-heading-back-radio/