Following Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment scandal and firing from Fox News, the former Factor host launched his own podcast and even asked listeners to pay for his thoughts. O’Reilly is now hinting that this approach has been successful, and he’s looking to further scratch his conservative itch. On the heels of a Friday Mediaite report that O’Reilly was compiling a crew of producers for a new project, the former cable-news talking head addressed the matter on the first stop of his new “The Spin Stops Here” tour.
Naturally, O’Reilly (who has has Dennis Miller in tow for a series of live appearances) made a big point out of updating his fans. Reports have circulated that hopeful Fox News competitors such as One America News have begun “eagerly courting” O’Reilly, but he ultimately wants to speak to the masses in his own way. Although he told his audience that “there could be a new network,” he also stressed that his website shall begin a 30-minute newscast and go from there. Via Newsday:
“I am starting my own operation. We are going to do that,” adding that his website, billoreilly.com, will beta test a half-hour newscast “where we will go into a studio and here it will look like ‘The Factor.’ … It’s basically an experiment to see how many people are going to want this service. That’s coming and will be here before September in a robust form. But I suspect there will be another network maybe merging with us. There will be a network that rises up because the numbers for Fox are going down.”
Elsewhere during the program, O’Reilly further hinted at the “truth” coming out soon on what really happened with his ousting:
“In the weeks to come, there will be a bunch of news stories that will explain what happened and why it happened. It’s pretty grisly. It’s pretty nasty. It has to do with far-left progressive organizations that are bent on destroying anybody with whom they disagree, including the president.”
O’Reilly obviously talking about the Media Matters campaign to pressure advertisers to drop his program. He also stated that he doesn’t really blame Fox News (although he did get nasty during exit negotiations) for his ousting. O’Reilly has continued to maintain his innocence despite millions of dollars in settlement payments from himself and Fox to accusers, but he’s staying pretty quiet about Fox News for legal reasons.
On Twitter, the former cable news juggernaut bragged about selling out this weekend’s shows. This photo shows a sign in front of NYCB Theatre at Westbury, which has a capacity of 2,870 occupants.
Rainy day on Long Island – looking forward to tonight! pic.twitter.com/xOAdXXuON8
— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) June 17, 2017