Posted on 12/23/2001 9:38:38 PM PST by RobFromGa
O’Reilly on Radio: It’s a ‘Done Deal’
Fox News Channel phenom Bill O’Reilly is gearing up for a network radio show on Westwood One beginning this March, NewsMax learned this weekend.
A source familiar with Westwood, the nation’s largest provider of content to radio stations, said the new O’Reilly program was "a done deal.”
As it stands, O’Reilly will go head-to-head with conservative Rush Limbaugh, the nation’s most listened to radio host, in the 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST slot.
O'Reilly will also join Westwood's stellar lineup of radio talent, which includes Don Imus, Laura Ingraham, Tom Leykis, G. Gordon Liddy and Jim Bohannon.
Our source said O’Reilly is anxious to get started, and Westwood has already begun lining up stations.
One major hiccup is finding O’Reilly a New York outlet, the nation’s biggest radio market and one believed to be key to an early syndication success.
Currently, talk station WABC in New York carries Rush Limbaugh.
Westwood is already in negotiations with WABC competitor, 50,000 watt powerhouse WOR, which airs "King of Talk” Bob Grant during rush hour.
Currently, WOR has no political talk for its Grant lead-in during the 12-3 slot. Still, WOR execs won’t give Westwood the time.
WOR has offered to air O’Reilly, but on tape delay in the evening.
But that move may mean O’Reilly’s radio program will compete with its top-rated cable program.
A success on talk radio will solidify O’Reilly as one of the top media properties in America.
His radio audience could easily be several times larger than his cable one, and industry experts say O’Reilly could easily pull $10 million a year from his radio gig – significantly more than his multi-million Fox deal.
Sounds like another mistaken announcement.
At least I hope so. Liddy is the most entertaining fellow on talk radio.
it's sad to see people overreach and turn into geraldos, but in this case i'm willing to make an exception. o'reilly is a professional bloviator, without an underlying philosophy. westwood is cbs, and, well, we know about that, don't we.
dep
'Populists' (aka O'Reillyists) are those who go for the popular middle-class working-class votes using the same class division tactics used by the Democrats to woo the lower and lower-middle classes.
'Conservatives' are those to whom the Constitution means something, namely that the Imperial Federal Geovernment of the USA is not an income-redistribution scheme cooked up by the Founding Fathers.
The GOP does not usually live up the Conservative definition above, but hey you've got to get elected and the Constitution is a 'living document' anyway-- right?
But, if any station in the Middle Tennessee area has the gutz to carry his program, I'll be sure and tune in !!
Thanks, for the info !
Some no spin zone, huh?
Of course, that is, if this report is accurate.
In today's market and business world, losers on the radio don't get much financial backing.
He is a winner on Fox News as what he does so is unusual on tv!
However, if his new talk show lasts one year, I will be greatly surprised! The only thing can save him would be passionate moderates. Of course that is an Oxymoron, there ain't no passionate moderates. If they were passionate about anything, they would either be a left winged liberal or a conservative!
We know that left wing talk show hosts might make it in a liberal city, but as soon as they try to even go regional, their training wheels fall off! There is no successful liberal talk show host on a regional or national basis! O' Reilly is not a liberal so he will not not even appeal to the weak liberal markets!
He sure isn't a real conservative, and the conservative audiences will tune him out when his progressive Irish side comes out on the radio.
I hope that he loses it fast and realizes that he is good at what he does at Fox and stays on FoxNews and does an even better job!
I'm sure that Sean Hannity's success and Michael Savage's success are making O'Reilly hungry for some of that radio pie. He ain't no Sean nor Michael, and he sure ain't no Rush! He will find this out very soon!
So Mr O'Reilly, you had best keep your day job at FoxNews and not burn any bridges!
I'm glad he's apparently going to get his hearing back after the operation, but it won't help the fact that he has run out of ideas. He had a great run, though.
That doesn't mean I think O'Reilly is any better. I won't listen to him. I still think of him as the host of the tabloid TV show called "Inside Edition," which I preferred to its competitor, "Hard Copy," but not by much.
Limbaugh could make a real comeback if Marta would let him start bashing gays and doing "caller abortions" again. It might have been in extremely poor taste at times, but the old, fat Limbaugh was overall much funnier than the slimmed-down, self-censoring one.
"Bah, Humbug" is my take on both these hosts, in case you hadn't guessed. LOL
I think both of them are the best two things that ever happened to talk radio.
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