O'Reilly is out at Fox but influence endures - AP...
NEW YORK (AP) -- Fox News Channel has
thrived despite losing founding leader Roger Ailes and next
generation star Megyn Kelly within the past nine months. Wednesday's
firing of defining personality Bill O'Reilly will be its toughest
test yet.
Fox moved quickly to install a new
lineup after announcing O'Reilly's exit due to several harassment
allegations by women, which he continues to deny. Outside pressure
isn't leaving with him; members of the National Organization for
Women demonstrated outside Fox's headquarters Thursday, saying the
company's workplace culture won't really change unless management
cleans house of other high-ranking executives who knew about the
sexual harassment but didn't do anything.
For most of Fox's existence, O'Reilly
had been the linchpin of its success as the most visible and most
watched host. Fox's viewership at 9 p.m. went up when Tucker Carlson
replaced Kelly in January - her battles with Donald Trump cost her
support among many Fox viewers - but don't expect Carlson to repeat
the feat when he moves an hour earlier on Monday.
"There's going to be some dismay
among the Fox audience," said Tim Graham, director of media
analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center. "The
real question is what happens next. If they offer the same generic
product, then it will be forgive and forget."
Announcing a new lineup at the same
time as the O'Reilly firing was smart, Graham said, because it
enabled some viewers to say, "Oh, that's not bad. I can live
with that."
Fox News has consistently been the
most-watched network in all of cable television, not just news, over
the past few months. The ouster of Ailes due to sexual harassment
allegations last summer may have been disturbing, but meant little to
viewers because it was off the air. Most of his management team
remained, and the network's approach didn't change.
O'Reilly's brand of middle-class
populism, delivered with a mix of humor and outrage, predated and
reflected the appeal of President Donald Trump. O'Reilly wasn't
always predictable in his opinions. Joe Pollak of the right wing
Breitbart.com web site wrote a column on Thursday headlined, "Bill
O'Reilly's secret: he was a centrist, not a conservative."
Arguably, the lineup installed in his
stead is more reliably conservative. Carlson has made it a point to
seek a younger audience by reaching out to the alt-right community,
said Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal Media Matters for
America. Eric Bolling begins his own show at 5 p.m. and the current
late-afternoon panel show, "The Five," moves into the 9
p.m. hour.
"It's not like they brought in
Shep Smith or a news anchor," Carusone said.
Carlson scored the highest ratings
ever for Fox in the 9 p.m. time slot early for the first three months
of 2017, but there remains some question about how much that was a
result of following O'Reilly in the lineup. With him moving up an
hour, 9 p.m. likely represents Fox's biggest challenge. "The
Five" is set up as a panel show with one liberal trying to hold
his own with four conservatives. The panelists are familiar to Fox
viewers, and O'Reilly protege Jesse Watters is being added to the
mix.
"The Five" faces strong
competition with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in that hour, and CNN is about
to give Jake Tapper a test drive in the time slot.
Trump's most ardent defender on Fox,
Sean Hannity, remains at 10 p.m. ET.
Fox plainly hopes that the brand and
point of view it has developed is stronger than any single
personality, even one as outsized as O'Reilly.
Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and
Lachlan, who run Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, have talked about
building an atmosphere of respect for women at the workplace now that
the network's top executive and top personality have both been
drummed out for their behavior. Some observers, like the NOW
demonstrators, wonder if that can happen without further changes
behind the scenes.
Ailes' former top aide, Bill Shine,
is now Fox's co-president. He hasn't been accused of any harassment,
but many inside and outside of Fox have wondered how much he and
other executives still in place knew about Ailes' and O'Reilly's
behavior. Fox even signed O'Reilly to a contract extension knowing
that The New York Times was investigating harassment allegations
against him - the story that led to O'Reilly's ouster.
"There were a lot of people at
Fox who really hoped things would change after Roger left and they
didn't," said Margaret Hoover, a former Fox political
contributor, on CNN Thursday. She added: "Nothing changed in the
sense that the culture that perpetuated this behavior is the same."
Another former Fox contributor,
Kirsten Powers, described on CNN an on-air segment with O'Reilly she
found offensive because of the way the host talked about all the
"blondes" who worked there. Powers said she sought an
apology from O'Reilly and didn't get one, and her complaints were
waved off by various managers, including Ailes. She said she wouldn't
go on O'Reilly's show, despite the high-profile platform it provided,
for a few years afterward.
A former Fox clerical worker who
anonymously complained Tuesday came forward Thursday on "The
View" to identify herself and speak about the experience.
Perquita Burgess, who is black, said O'Reilly leered at her, made
grunting noises as he passed her desk and once referred to her as
"hot chocolate." She said she felt "triumphant"
when she heard about O'Reilly's firing.
"It's very cathartic," she
said.
TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.
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