The crusade against Fox News is reaching a fever pitch.
Activist liberals with assistance from left-wing media outlets like CNN drove Bill O’Reilly off the air in an attempt to destroy Fox News.
Now the situation has taken a turn for the worse.
Fox News finished in third place behind MSNBC and CNN for Monday, May 15th.
They finished third in the 25-54 year-old demographic and barely won the night by a scant 2,000 viewer margin over MSNBC.
Deadline reports:
“Fox News eked out a first-place total-viewer finish in primetime this past Monday, but only 2,ooo viewers ahead of MSNBC (2.53M vs. 2.528M). But, FNC finished third in primetime in the news demo, 25-54, with 499K viewers, well behind CNN’s 608K and MSNBC’s winning 662K viewers. Last week, FNC topped all of cable in primetime and total day in total viewers.”
Fox ratings have declined for three straight months, but they have attracted even more attention after the network caved into left-wing pressure groups and fired Bill O’Reilly.
O’Reilly stated the campaign against him was an organized hit.
The Hollywood Reporter writes:
In his first interview since he was fired last month, Bill O’Reilly has vowed to take legal action against what he sees as an “organized left-wing cabal” that seeks his destruction.
“This was a hit, and in the weeks to come we’re going to be able to explain some of it,” O’Reilly said Friday on Glenn Beck’s radio show.
O’Reilly spoke of a group, possibly funded by progressive billionaire George Soros, “that goes in and terrorizes sponsors. That threatens people behind the scenes; that pays people to say things…
… “I was target No. 1, and it’s sad,” O’Reilly told Beck. “It’s grossly dishonest. I did what I thought I had to do to protect my family. But those days are over. From now on, when I’m attacked, I’m going to take action — mostly legal action. But it’s not going to happen anymore to me.”
O’Reilly said the organized attacks on him were going on two years ago when he, like Brian Williams of NBC News, was accused of exaggerating past experiences.
“It was bull. It was all a lie,” O’Reilly told Beck on Friday. “Now it’s ramped up since President Trump was elected. It’s ramped up to a place where I think this is going to become a major story in the next six months.”
Conservatives are concerned because News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s sons – who are globalist minded leftists – are playing a more prominent role in the network’s decision making.
And they want to move the network toward the so-called “middle”.
Experts believe that means Fox will turn into just another liberal network.
Michael Wolff wrote on the Hollywood Reporter:
“These sources say James Murdoch’s longtime annoyance if not disgust with Fox News became cold fury after the Times’ April 1 story — even though several of the O’Reilly settlements had happened when James was CEO of the parent company. This was a similar reaction to what had followed the harassment suit by former anchor Gretchen Carlson against Fox News chief Roger Ailes in July. Every time Fox controversies spilled over into the wider world, James took it personally. “It was somehow against him,” says one person close to the Murdochs.
Fox News is a business he should not be in, he had told people before, despite its major contribution to 21st Century Fox’s bottom line — 20 percent of its profits came from Fox News last year, the biggest-earning division in the company. Presumably, he meant the in-your-face world of conservative cable news with its mega personalities. Indeed, James regarded many of the people at Fox News as thuggish Neanderthals and said he was embarrassed to be in the same company with them.”
Bill O’Reilly had the largest and most loyal audience in cable news.
Firing him drove off a segment of viewers.
Will Murdoch’s sons use the ratings slide as cover for changing the tone of Fox’s coverage?
Let us know what you think in the comment section.