During an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly weighed-in on the dubious future of the Fox News Channel.
Last month, despite his sky-high ratings, O’Reilly was ousted from the network over numerous allegations of sexual harassment. The top-rated host said the accusations were unfounded, claiming the far-left ran a smear campaign against him because they disagreed with his politics.
O’Reilly thinks the same groups are targeting his former colleague, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and is unsure if his old network could “handle another shake-up.”
“It’s the same thing, the far left going after him, trying to get him off the air,” he told the AP. “I think Hannity will survive because I don’t know if Fox can handle another shake-up like that.”
As O’Reilly saw before his removal, Hannity is seeing advertisers bolt from his Fox show. The Fox host occupying the 10 p.m. hour reported on an unfounded theory surrounding the death of former DNC staffer Seth Rich before the advertiser pull-out.
As noted by Daily Wire’s John Nolte, the firing of O’Reilly has severely crippled Fox News’ ratings.
On Monday, April 15, “the embattled network dropped to last place, behind both MSNBC and CNN in the primetime 25-54 age bracket, the one most coveted by advertisers. In total primetime viewers, Fox handily beat CNN but lost by a hair to MSNBC,” reported Nolte. “Other than beating CNN in the primetime demo, pretty much the same thing happened Friday. The left-wing MSNBC bludgeoned Fox with 503,000 demo viewers compared to just 371,000.”
The King of Cable is right: Fox News might not be able to withstand another shake-up.