Bill O’Reilly is ready to declare Stephen Colbert a flop as host of The Late Show because he’s just too darned liberal.
I’m sure the fact that Colbert made his name in late-night comedy lampooning O’Reilly had nothing to do with O’Reilly’s glee. In fact, O’Reilly never even mentioned it!
O’Reilly did pat himself on the back for his foresight. He played a clip from April, 2014 predicting that Colbert would be too liberal to do well.
O’REILLY: Colbert has made a living exclusively satirizing the right. And he has plenty of material. But that won’t be enough to beat Fallon and Kimmel who are sharp and well-produced. Colbert will have to be better than those guys to compete well in the ratings. And remember, he’s already alienated 40% of the country who define themselves as conservative.
Last night, O’Reilly suggested he had been proven correct.
O’REILLY: Now the ratings of the week of November 23rd show that Mr. Colbert has fallen behind Fallon, Kimmel and even Seth Meyers, who’s on the air an hour later than he is. Again, that’s because Colbert makes a living in the far-left precincts. When Letterman started doing that, his ratings started to fall. Fallon, Kimmel and Meyers – they’re not all that ideological. The late night audience simply wants a few laughs. They don’t want derisive political discourse.
Then O’Reilly took another victory lap, this time over his own ratings.
O’REILLY: By the way, in cable news, The Factor continues to dominate the ratings in all categories even though some publications dishonestly spin the numbers. Annoying, but after 19 years, we’re used to it.
However, the story of Colbert’s ratings is not so simple, not so bad and not so settled. Variety explains there’s a “new math” in late night partly because of many changes in the programs but also in large part because of the rising role of social media.
In that light, the hosts need to build appeal with their core viewers, and then work to branch out. For instance, Colbert may not be the most-watched host in the wee hours, but his “Late Show” nabbed 52% more viewers between 18 and 49 in the first nine weeks of the television season, which exclude Colbert’s first two weeks, compared with the year-earlier period, and snared 118% more viewers between 18 and 34.
“The show can be very successful and very profitable without having to worry about Fallon and/or Kimmel,” said David Poltrack, CBS Corp.’s chief research officer. Colbert is luring a well-heeled, highly educated viewership, he said. “As long as he can hold on to that audience, he doesn’t have to win the numbers(game).” In other words, in a time slot splintered by new hosts, Colbert has to trump David Letterman, not Jimmy Fallon — at least for now.
In other words, O’Reilly’s self-congratulations may well turn into, “Curses! Foiled again!”
Watch O’Reilly’s schadenfreude below, from the December 10 The O’Reilly Factor.
The only comment deleted from you was one that I just deleted a few minutes ago because it was a duplicate of the one you posted about the ratings. Maybe you posted it here because it was mistakenly posted on another thread. If so, my mistake because it just looked like a duplicate and I didn’t look at the thread title.
So if you want to re-post that charmer here, you may.
Otherwise, the only comment that got erased by you on this thread was one you either inadvertently erased yourself or one that didn’t go through because our system is a bit dysfunctional.
But don’t worry Bill, you’ve got the Geritol and adult diaper market locked tight.
Thanks for the facts, Eyes On Fox. When it comes to BOR, it’s always good to check and see what he’s conveniently left out.
Did some quick fact-checking. When dealing with anything uttered by Bill O’Reilly you know digging through his data-mined bullsh—t will have a payoff.
So Colbert who he mocks as being unpopular has an audience of 3.5 million. In ‘the demo’ he’s up 72%.
http://www.thewrap.com/stephen-colbert-late-show-cbs-tv-ratings-three-months/
Meanwhile, O’Reilly on his ‘best night ever’ last February (has he improved since?) is slightly trailing Colbert at 3.34 million. Ironically, this ‘surge’ was driven by the controversy over Bill’s serial lying which got a lot of mainstream media coverage. People love watching a train wreck!
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/fox-news-channels-the-oreilly-factor-surges-in-ratings-1201442516/
That said, O’Reilly is doing his typical data-mining. Fox News continually pimps their Fox Business channel with great enthusiasm. You never see O’Reilly mock its pathetic ratings and its spin is clearly as right-wing as GOPTV™’s mothership Bill-O headlines.
Cue O’Reilly lying once or twice a day his is the ‘no-spin zone.’
Here’s a sampling of FBN’s abysmal ratings:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/10/09/cable-news-ratings-for-thursday-oct-8-2015/