"Huntley, Brinkley, Chancellor, Brokaw...and now, Rosie" began Bill O'Reilly last night on "The O'Reilly Factor" under the headline "Far Left Merger." Didn't take much to figure out exactly where he stood on the whole NBC-looking-to-hire-Rosie O'Donnell-for-MSNBC thing. Turns out, he's not a fan! Why? Same reason he wasn't a fan of Rosie during her stint last year on "The View," i.e. the whole sympathy-for-the-terrorists-dark-9/11-conspiracy-mutterings thing. It seemed like the outspokn O'Donnell was on the cable news shows every other day saying something that drew their outrage — and the ratings, which is why NBC is in talks with O'Donnell to possibly come aboard, despite the, er, credibility issues associated with some of her more controversial comments (the above-referenced 9/11 conspiracy comments come to mind). It's far from a done deal, according to a few sources at NBC, but it's under serious consideration — which makes sense, because Rosie O'Donnell at 9pm would provide some serious momentum coming from Keith Olbermann competition for Larry King. And right now, MSNBC is in third place but has been gaining steadily for a while, with Olbermann winning his timeslot virtually every night and the "doc block" taped programming often out-performing Anderson Cooper 360 — all of which must make second place seem very, very tempting.
O'Reilly, meanwhile, had a field day decrying how NBC had "embraced the radical left agenda in pursuit of ratings" and adding his own suggested contributors ("It is not true that Sean Penn will be co-anchoring the "NBC Nightly News"...It is also not true that Hugo Chavez will become their chief foreign correspondent.") Well, NBC should get used to this sort of thing if they hire Rosie O'Donnell — because it will be for ratings. But hey, that's the biz — and The View proved that Rosie could deliver in that department, especially in an election year (they'll just really need to hire a smart staff to support her, and then cross their fingers that she doesn't decide to go off on any conspiracy tangents again). But who knows — as we said, it's far from a done deal, and — crucially — there are no oblique references to same on her blog, the locus of all truth. (Funfact: Ro did blog about having a great dinner at Sylvia's last week, and did not marvel at how "normal" everyone seemed.)
O'Reilly also had a cow at Jaques Steinberg for having the temerity to imply that "MSNBC is competitive with "The Factor" at 8:00 p.m.....Mr. Steinberg knows that is not true. He knows that's a lie, but he wrote it anyway." What Steinberg actually wrote:
On some nights recently, Mr. Olbermann has even come tantalizingly close to surpassing the ratings of the host he describes as his nemesis, Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, at least among viewers ages 25 to 54, which is the demographic cable news advertisers prefer. Most of the time, though, Mr. O'Reilly outdraws Mr. Olbermann by about 1.5 million viewers over all at the same hour, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Said O'Reilly: "Steinberg knows the score, but chose to deceive the public --disgraceful." Um, who's deceiving whom now?
Video:Talking Points Memo 11/06/07 [FoxNews]Transcript: Talking Points Memo 11/06/07 [Fox News]
Cable Channel Nods to Ratings and Leans Left [NYT]
Related:
Audio: Tom Brokaw Demurs Opining On Rosie [Johnny Dollar's Place]