Although he has been widely depicted as a domestic abuser and serial sex harasser, Bill O’Reilly remains a hot TV property.
Conservative media outlets are circling the former Fox News Channel ratings king in the hope of creating a potent competitor to Fox News Channel.
“Bill O’Reilly has been nothing short of a powerhouse in cable news. We have received thousands of requests to add Mr. O’Reilly to our team,” Charles Herring, CEO of San Diego-based One America Network, told MediaBlast in an email.
He added: “I’m sure several national cable news networks have expressed strong interest in Mr. O’Reilly, and One America News is no exception, but we have no further comments at this time.”
Sources tell Mediablast that O’Reilly is also being pursued by executives at Sinclair, a huge right-leaning broadcaster.
Sinclair owns 170 TV stations, including Chicago’s superstation WGN, and struck a $3.9-million deal this month to buy Tribune media and its 42 stations.
The family that controls the company — four brothers: David, Robert, Frederick and J. Duncan Smith — are reportedly considering a plan to transform wide-reaching WGN into a conservative all-news network to compete with Fox.
A rep for O’Reilly did not return calls for comment. But O’Reilly has made no bones about his desire to keep his voice out there — and may also be mulling the launch of his own media outlet, much as Glenn Beck started The Blaze after he left Fox in 2011.
Fox forced O’Reilly out after The New York Times revealed that he and Fox News had paid $13 million to settle claims by five alleged abuse victims. The disclosure prompted more than half of his advertisers to bolt from “The O’Reilly Factor.”
O’Reilly has denied all the accusations leveled against him. A week after losing his job with a $25-million payoff, he addressed his exit on his podcast — a far-lower-profile platform.
“I am sad that I am not on television anymore,” he said on billoreilly.com. “I was very surprised how it all turned out. I can’t say a lot because there’s much stuff going on right now, but I can tell you that I am very confident the truth will come out and when it does I don’t know if you are going to be surprised, but I think you are going to be shaken as I am.”
Industry interest in O’Reilly has intensified even as he has been battered by fresh allegations related to his defunct marriage, which ended bitterly in 2011.
An affidavit leaked from his sealed divorce case and published on Jezebel.com describes a disturbing 2009 domestic scene:
O’Reilly, naked from the waist down, bellowing in rage, slamming his now-ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, into a wall and dragging her down a hallway in their Long Island home after she walked in on him masturbating during phone sex.
The talk show host has fought hard — and for the most part successfully — to keep details of his divorce under wraps. Still, any new employer will inherit O’Reilly’s extensive collection of baggage.
Two former Fox News employees have alleged, for example, that O’Reilly harassed them with unwanted phone calls that strongly suggested he was pleasuring himself on the other end.
Andrea Mackris, a former “O’Reilly Factor” producer who sued in 2004, claimed she heard her boss masturbating during a phone call. Her lawyers later alluded to audio tapes she had made of conversations. O’Reilly and Fox settled with Mackris reportedly for $9 million.
Juliet Huddy, a former Fox News host alleged that the anchor made “highly inappropriate and sexual” phone calls to her.
“On some occasions,” according to The New York Times, those calls “sounded as if O’Reilly was masturbating.” Huddy settled with Fox News and O’Reilly last September for $1.6 million.
