| | | | I keep getting asked: Is Bill O'Reilly invincible? Can the Murdochs continue to stand by O'Reilly? Will they? | | | 20 advertisers yank ads from "The O'Reilly Factor" | | Tom Kludt emails: When I woke up this morning, the number of companies that had pulled ads from "The O'Reilly Factor" stood at two. As I write this at a quarter to 10pm Eastern, the number has swelled to 20. By the close of business, it had the feel of a tsunami, with one brand after another filling my inbox with their plans to re-direct ads to other programming and assorted denouncements of sexual harassment.
Perhaps the most telling withdrawal came from Lexus, which yesterday said that it was evaluating the situation. By 5pm, at which time several other automakers had yanked spots from the "Factor," Lexus decided it had seen enough.
Here's Tom's full story... and a list of all the advertiser responses... | | The real # is higher than 20. Some advertisers have privately asked Fox to reallocate their ads, but haven't said it publicly... | | | Who did advertise on Tuesday night | | Via Brian Lowry: "ServPro, Shriners Hospital, AncestryDNA.com, gold, CarFax, Coldwell Banker, Mahindra tractor, a lot of pharma/med..." | | Fox says it's not losing ad $$$'s -- merely redirecting clients' ads from the "Factor" to "other FNC programs." That's typical in cases like this.
"We value our partners and are working with them to address their current concerns about the O'Reilly Factor," ad sales EVP Paul Rittenberg said Tuesday afternoon. The day definitely felt like a tipping point on the ad sales front... | | | A tipping point for news coverage too? | | "The Bill O'Reilly controversy is becoming a Bill O'Reilly crisis," Dylan Byers writes in this recap of Tuesday's developments... | | | O'Reilly says "deception is everywhere in the media" | | This comment at the end of Tuesday's "Factor" seemed like a subtweet of the NYT's story about his $$ settlements: "It is not easy to get honest news. Deception is everywhere in the media. There are few standards left."
Then O'Reilly praised the WSJ editorial board for being an exception to the rule... that is, the Murdoch-owned WSJ... as Tom wrote on Twitter, "Perhaps a toast to Murdoch?" | | | O'Reilly's ratings: head and shoulders above others on Fox | | Monday's #'s tell the story. At 7pm, Fox's Martha MacCallum had 2.49 million viewers, 438,000 in the 25-54 demo. Then O'Reilly came on. Fox surged to 3.65 million viewers, 645,000 in the demo. At 9pm, Tucker Carlson took over, and Fox was back to 2.46 million viewers, 494,000 in the demo. O'Reilly's ratings power is unparalleled... which is what you have to keep in mind while reading this next item... | | A lunchtime statement: "The National Organization for Women (NOW) calls for Bill O'Reilly to be fired and demands an immediate independent investigation into the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News." Wendy Walsh's lawyer Lisa Bloom similarly called for an "independent investigation" on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." | | | Roginsky wants NYC to investigate Fox | | Julie Roginsky was back on Fox for two segments on Tuesday, one day after suing Roger Ailes and Bill Shine. What happened off-air was more significant: Roginsky's attorney sent letters to NYC authorities requesting "an investigation into non-compliance with the New York City Human Rights Law at Fox News..." | | | "They need to sweep that place out with a shovel" | | Stephen Battaglio's LATimes story brings up the POV that media execs are privately talking about:
"Jeff Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management, believes the continued revelations should make 21st Century Fox consider more changes to the executive team that worked alongside Ailes for years. 'They need to sweep that place out with a shovel,' Sonnenfeld said..." | | -- CJR's Kyle Pope says Fox's journos should not stay silent: "It's time for the real journalists at the network (and beyond) to make themselves heard..."
-- Psychology prof and gender scholar Peggy Drexler writing for CNN.com: "Companies' limp censure of powerful men -- particularly when it's exposed (by a female journalist) in such a thorough and seemingly incontrovertible way -- has a kind of upside. It will be the provocation women need to come forward and to understand that change is in their hands, and their hands only..."
-- Via Tom Kludt: Henry Holt, which publishes "Old School" and other O'Reilly books, says it has "no comment at this time..." | | | Lemon's tweet to O'Reilly | | O'Reilly's web site and Twitter handle posted a story on Tuesday titled "CNN's Don Lemon refuses to cover Susan Rice story." Lemon responded with a 🔥 🔥 🔥 tweet: "False. I did not refuse to cover the story. But I did cover your sexual harassment allegations. Did you?" Obviously O'Reilly did not reply... | | | Racial discrimination suits | | Gabriel Sherman writes: "Another black female employee in Fox News' payroll department is joining a racial discrimination lawsuit filed last week by two of her black colleagues." Details here...
After news of the latest lawsuit broke on Tuesday, Drudge highlighted this suit instead: a proposed class action case against CNN that was filed last December. "We're not suggesting any equivalency. Only that the growing lawsuit against CNN deserves attention, too," THR's Eriq Gardner writes in the story Drudge shared... | | | Showtime is developing "The Last Days of Roger Ailes" miniseries | | Gabriel Sherman and Tom McCarthy's Ailes project for Blumhouse (announced last fall) now has a network home: Showtime. On Tuesday the network said that it beat out other bidders for the rights to the project, which is titled "Secure And Hold: The Last Days Of Roger Ailes." Showtime has ordered scripts... the next step will be a greenlight of the miniseries... here's my full story.
-- Related: Blumhouse is forming a TV studio... "Secure And Hold" is its first project... NYT's Brooks Barnes interviewed Jason Blum about it... | | | There was a lot of OTHER media news on Tuesday... | | -- Jonathan Mahler's behind-the-scenes look at CNN in the age of Trump, in this Sunday's NYT Mag, is online now... lots of Jeff Zucker quotes about his relationship with the president... (NYT)
-- News Corp CEO Robert Thomson has an op-ed in the WSJ: "Fake News and the Digital Duopoly." He says "Google and Facebook have created a dysfunctional and socially destructive information ecosystem..." (WSJ)
-- Congrats to all the Mirror Awards finalists and Webby Awards nominees! Both lists came out on Tuesday. This newsletter was a runner-up (an "honoree") in the "best email newsletter" category, so we're gunning for it next year... | | | Pierre's $100 million donation | | Margaret Sullivan with the scoop: Pierre Omidyar's philanthropy, the Omidyar Network, is giving $100 million "to support investigative journalism, fight misinformation and counteract hate speech around the world." And "one of the first contributions, $4.5 million, will go to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Washington-based group behind last year's Panama Papers Investigation." Read more... | | Sally Buzbee, who became the AP's executive editor in January, announced this on Tuesday: "Brian Carovillano will be AP's new managing editor, the No. 2 spot in news. David Scott will take on a new role as deputy managing editor for operations."
Carovillano has been the wire's managing editor of U.S. news for the past three years... now he'll "take on responsibility for newsgathering across all formats globally..." | | "Often when I talk about mass atrocities of the past pre-social media I hear 'we didn't know' excuse. Doesn't work in Syria. We. Do. Know."
--Political adviser Julie Lenarz on Twitter... | | | Rosie Gray writing a book about Breitbart | | "Rosie Gray, The Atlantic's White House correspondent and a former BuzzFeed News reporter, has inked a deal with publishing giant HarperCollins for a book about the far-right news outlet," BuzzFeed's Steven Perlberg reports. His sources say "Gray received an advance of about $350,000..."
-- The Daily Caller's unnecessarily sinister headline about the news: "Journalist Gets $350K To Dig Up Dirt On Breitbart News"
-- Semi-related: Last week Politico said Joshua Green, who wrote that indispensable profile of Steve Bannon, is writing a book for Penguin "about the last election and the ascendancy of the populist right..." | | | Big new VF feature about Breitbart | | | Amazon will stream Thursday night NFL games this fall | | This is "Amazon's first significant foray into live streaming" besides Twitch "and its first major move into sports." Recode's Peter Kafka scoops that Amazon has won the streaming rights to the NFL's package of 10 Thursday night games.
Details: "Amazon is paying around $50 million for the 10 games it will show next fall, according to a person familiar with the deal. That's a big increase from the $10 million Twitter paid for last year's games. The rest of the deal is roughly similar to the one Twitter had last year..." | | CNNMoney's sports biz reporter Ahiza Garcia writes: Retiring Cowboys QB Tony Romo is joining CBS Sports "as its lead NFL analyst for the upcoming season. The length of the deal is unclear, but Romo will replace Phil Simms, who was the network's lead NFL analyst for 19 years."
CBS says it's talking with Simms about a new role... | | | More and more good #'s news for CBS | | Brian Lowry emails: For CBS, it was a day with good ratings news on multiple fronts. Monday night's NCAA championship game climbed roughly 30% over last year's results, to 23 million viewers, with the tournament (on CBS and Turner Sports) up 16% overall; "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" topped "The Tonight Show" by roughly 400,000 viewers last week, tying the NBC program among adults 25-54; and "CBS This Morning" (3.6 million viewers) continued to narrow its third-place status behind "GMA" (4.2 million) and "Today" (just over 4 million). Indeed, CBS research reached into the way-back machine, saying it was CBS' closest finish to "Today" in "at least 29 years..." | | | Conservative media narrative: the rest of the media is ignoring Obama "scandal" | | Susan Rice has become "the face of the Trump counter-narrative on Russia," as NYMag's Ed Kilgore helpfully explains here. It's dominating the news cycle on Fox -- with many segments doubling as media criticism. A sampling of Tuesday's on-screen banners:
"MEDIA'S RICE COVER-UP"
"MAJOR MEDIA OUTLETS IGNORE RICE 'UNMASKING' REPORT"
"MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN OVERDRIVE TO DISPROVE RICE STORY" | | Meantime, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell scored the first interview with Rice... Trump aide Dan Scavino called Mitchell a "Dem PR person" in a tweet... | | | Most Americans think the Trump-press relationship is unhealthy | | I love Pew, but I'm not sure we needed a survey to confirm this: "Most Say Tensions Between Trump Administration and News Media Hinder Access to Political News." The subhed is slightly more interesting: "Large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans say the relationship between the two is unhealthy..." | | -- "ESPN announced Tuesday that Michelle Beadle has been named the full-time host of 'NBA Countdown' on ABC and ESPN," replacing Sage Steele... (Variety)
-- Have you heard about Mastodon.social? Casey Newton says it's an "open-source Twitter competitor that's growing like crazy..." (The Verge) | | | Writers guild will resume negotiations | | Sandra Gonzalez emails big news from L.A.: The Writers Guild of America is headed back to the negotiating table. The Guild announced Monday night that it will restart talks with AMPTP the week of April 10 in hopes of reaching a deal before the current contract expires May 1. The cost that would come with a strike is not lost on anyone I've spoken to. It's not a decision that would be taken lightly.
"We're just hoping everybody reasonably comes to terms and doesn't throw the entire industry into a spiral," "Homeland" producer Alex Gansa told me Monday night at a For Your Consideration event that unofficially kicked off Emmy season. More here... | | | Why you should catch up on "Homeland" | | More from Sandra Gonzalez: Speaking of "Homeland," if you're not caught up on the latest season, you're missing out. The season has had an excellent running storyline about fake news (with a "Homeland"-ian twist) that in all likelihood will earn it some Emmy attention this year. "We all assume that what we're doing on TV tends toward the fantastical so it's been intense that it has been so [much like a] docudrama, quite frankly," Elizabeth Marvel, who plays president-elect Elizabeth Keane, told me. "It is remarkable how these writers read the tea leaves and see what's coming." Click here for the full story... | | | Maybe you don't need to DVR "Prison Break" | | Brian Lowry emails: Fox is big on marketing-friendly reboots and revivals, but its latest, "Prison Break," is another creative disappointment that gives viewers reason to look for the exit. Read the full review here >>> | | | Jordan Klepper getting the post-Daily Show time slot | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: Comedy Central has found a new 11:30pm-helmer in "Daily Show" alum Jordan Klepper. He's getting his own late-night talk show this fall. He takes over the slot once held by "The Colbert Report" and later by "The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore..." | | | What Trevor Noah is "selling" | | Last but not least from Sandra: Speaking of "The Daily Show," I enjoyed this story about the show's turnaround from Michael Schneider at IndieWire. The piece notes that Trevor Noah's approach to covering Trump has resulted in its best post-Jon Stewart ratings so far.
Notable quote from Noah: "I'm not selling you anger...I am selling you a relationship and a connection. I am selling you a home and a little space that we can share together to process what is happening in our lives." | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. | |  | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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