No pictures on radio.
Posted on 06/07/2002 11:46:38 AM PDT by vannrox
| The O'Reilly factory: Radio talk show rolls off Fox commentator's assembly line by Dean Johnson Tuesday, May 7, 2002
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He has been anointed television's fifth most powerful person by the trade journal Electronic Media, in part because his Fox News Channel program ``The O'Reilly Factor'' is one of the top cable news shows in the country. He has had two books at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and a novel that Mel Gibson's production company has optioned for a movie. He writes a syndicated newspaper column that runs in nearly 200 papers across the country. And tomorrow, Bill O'Reilly debuts a two-hour radio talk show (weekdays at 1 p.m. on WTKK-FM, 96.9) that is already being hailed as the biggest syndicated rollout in radio history. O'Reilly's show will start with 206 stations behind it, and another three dozen are expected to be added shortly. All that notoriety begs two questions: Does this make O'Reilly the new King of All Media? Does he have no desire for a private life? ``Howard (Stern) was the King of All Media first. We're both Boston University graduates, so he can keep it,'' O'Reilly said. ``I'll just try to be the Duke of All Media.'' O'Reilly insisted the new radio gig won't be that much of an intrusion into what's left of his personal life. He's usually at the Fox studios by noon, anyway. Now he'll get in an hour earlier each day. Fox even built a radio studio on the premises so he doesn't have to go anywhere to do the new show. Besides, ``there is so much synergy between television and radio, and the television show has been so successful, and the offers to do radio were so enormous, I figured, `Why not do it if you can do it without blowing yourself out?' '' O'Reilly believes he has structured the show so that won't happen. He called the daily program ``a free-floating two hours'' that won't be dependent on so-called ``name'' guests. His previous night's television show will often color his radio program, but O'Reilly also stressed, ``It's going to be about social issues, not politics. There's nothing on daytime radio but politics, so I think we can carve out a big audience.'' O'Reilly will consider several of the day's news stories in his own inimitable way, take phone calls, consider listeners' e-mails and end each shift with a half-hour of what he calls ``no-spin advice.'' He expects to present ``fast-paced information in an entertaining way,'' and he'll do it with a little help from a series of female co-hosts ranging from Valerie Harper and Morgan Fairchild to Rosie O'Donnell until a permanent partner is named. O'Reilly has a soft spot for Boston and even filled in at WRKO-AM (680) when he attended Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in the mid '90s. ``Boston saved me twice,'' the Long Island native said. He was a reporter at WHDH (Ch. 7) from 1982-84, which allowed him to leave his gig as a CBS network reporter and avoid ``getting beaten to death by Dan Rather and his boys, who were the most brutal crew in the business.'' He returned to the Hub in 1985 as a commentator at WCVB (Ch. 5) when he needed to return to the East Coast to be near his ill father. ``Thank God Channel 5 hired me then,'' he said. ``Obviously, Boston is a place where there is a very high awareness about what's going on,'' O'Reilly said. ``There is also a loyalty, an emotional attachment people have to the city, which means they take what happens much more seriously there than, say, in cities like Nashville, or San Diego or Dallas.'' What are O'Reilly's thoughts about a potential new talk show rival, former President Bill Clinton, who is reportedly negotiating with NBC? ``I don't know what the guy's gonna do,'' he said. ``If he tries political analysis, who's gonna believe him? I hear they're gonna call the show `Temptation Office.' ''
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The only thing is, he really isn't a conservative.
No pictures on radio.
In one word: NO!
Two books on the best seller list? Rush Limbaugh did that, and probably sold about ten times the number that O'Reilly did.
How many stations is he syndicated on? How many "live"? Very few stations would put him on against Rush. That's suicide. When he gets a contract like Rush did a year ago, we might revisit the question. I won't hold my breath.
He was barely better than Drudge on Sunday night. Which means he stunk up the joint.
I think some stations that carry Rush have signed O'Reilly and replay it at nite to keep the competition from gaining market share.
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