O’Reilly Afraid of Olbermann’s Name? Part 2
Crooks and Liars got the video up this morning of last night’s Countdown segment…
March 10, 2006
11 Comments »
TrackBack: http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2006/03/10/oreilly-afraid-of-olbermanns-name-part-2/trackback/
RSS feed for comments on this post.
BOR needs to suck it up and just not engage Olbermann anymore. Olbermann is like a cockroach. To really get rid of a cockroach you need to go all out and open a can of whoop *** on it. Clearly BOR won’t do that cause it would give Olbermann the publicity/ratings he craves so he’s doing it subtly and that’s like leaving food out at night for the cockroaches. Since BOR won’t go all Terminix on it he should stop leaving leftovers out. No more food = no more cockroach?? Hopefully the cockroach will crawl back into the hole it came out of and just die off.
Comment by Lurker — March 10, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
“BOR needs to suck it up and just not engage Olbermann anymore.”
Totally agree with that part of your thesis.
Comment by Spud — March 10, 2006 @ 8:30 pm
K.O. is on a roll–his 18-54 demos are the best on MSNBC, he beats Paula AND Nancy most nights, even though they have more “tabloid” shows, and he’s even much closer to BOR than ever. Not to mention it’s the best one-hour news broadcast on TV.
Comment by museglet — March 11, 2006 @ 12:34 am
Yeah, museglet! I think Lurker is a bit confused as to who is the real “cockroach” here. What Bill O’Reilly does not realize is that in this little play, he is the Coyote and Keith Olbermann is the Road Runner. He may be the big scary guy, but in this game, brains trump brawn every time. The more stupid “Acme” devices Bill tries to come up with to get Keith, the more they will fail and the more disaster will come to him as Keith says “Beep! Beep!” and goes on his merry way.
Bill can never just let the issue alone. Why? Because, for the first time, thanks to what’s happening in that “money demo,” he’s actually SCARED of Keith. He’s on the ropes…and Keith knows it.
Comment by tanne — March 11, 2006 @ 7:56 am
I HATE to agree with “tanne” but on this one, I do.
Comment by Roger C. — March 11, 2006 @ 10:30 am
Get a grip everyone. You all act as if O’Reilly and Olbermann are competing for the same audience. They are NOT! I doubt whether any Olbermann viewer would watch O’Reilly for any length of time, and I doubt whether an O’Reilly viewer could watch Olbermann for most stories.
If Keith ever stops his little ankle-biting attacks on O’Reilly, their audiences will probably revert to what they’ve been throughout each program’s history. End of story.
Comment by Missy — March 11, 2006 @ 5:00 pm
Um…Missy…do you realize that you’re arguing that Olbermann’s ratings are going up because he’s attacking O’Reilly? If that’s the case, and I don’t know if it is, then Olbermann has no reason to stop because it means his ratings will continue to go up…
Comment by Spud — March 11, 2006 @ 8:24 pm
Spud strikes again, Missy. How’s your foot taste?
Comment by Roger C. — March 12, 2006 @ 9:41 am
Yep, Spud is right on. You may think, Missy, that Olbermann’s viewers and O’Reilly’s viewers (or potential ones) are so different that never could the twain possibly meet. But it ain’t necessarily so. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some people out there are not looking for a “conservative news show” or a “liberal news show” to watch at 8 ET, but just “some news show with a host I enjoy and whose coverage of news I can believe or stand or stomach.” Now, for you that’s obviously not Olbermann, but maybe some people feel the same way about O’Reilly. And when they tune in to Olbermann it’s like “Thank goodness, somebody not like that guy on the other channel!”
And there may well be some O’Reilly viewers who otherwise would not know Keith Olbermann from Adam (because he’s on that low-rated network nobody watches, right?) except for the fact that Bill keeps ranting all the time about this guy who shall not be named over on MSNBC who is so terrible and his ratings are such a disaster. I think if I were an O’Reilly viewer, I’d be tempted to tune in if for no other reason than I was dying of curiosity to see WHAT THE GUY’S NAME WAS!
Right now, Bill O’Reilly is doing the equivalent of saying “Don’t think about the elephant in the room.” Only he’s saying “Pretend that elephant on the other channel just doesn’t exist. Hey, let’s replace that elephant with Phil Donahue. Oh, by the way, if you mention that elephant on my radio show, I will have you cut off and Fox Security will pay you a visit and your local authorities will take care of you.” Why on earth would he want to do this, if he doesn’t want people thinking about the elephant?
Whereas with Olbermann, at least he’s straightforward about it. He’s saying “There’s an elephant on the other channel, and he’s an idiot, and he’s scared of me. Isn’t it funny?” He doesn’t care if his fans are motivated to see what the elephant is up to. He trusts them to take a peek, have a good laugh and come back to him.
So, in this game…only Olbermann is going to win. The best O’Reilly can do is shut up about him and stop attracting more people to him and giving him all that free publicity. Besides which, Olbermann can never knock O’Reilly without bringing up loofahs and falafels…and why does O’Reilly want people to be reminded of THAT? There are people who didn’t even KNOW about the whole Mackris situation until now, who are asking what happened, who are being pointed to the paperwork of the lawsuit on The Smoking Gun. Is that going to help O’Reilly any? Thanks to throwing money at it, he was able to make that problem go away…but the damage to his image just keeps going and going and there’s nothing he can do about that.
If O’Reilly had a lick of sense he’d stop immediately giving Keith Olbermann any ammunition at all. But he’s like so many bullies in this world…he can dish it out, but he can’t take it.
Comment by tanne — March 12, 2006 @ 10:27 am
It appears that I misspoke (that may be an understatement)! What I meant is that I believe Olbermann may temporarily gain some additional viewers (those who may tune in just to see what on earth he’s talking about), but I don’t believe his tirade against O’Reilly is enough to sustain a loyal viewership over an extended period of time. Keith is going to have to have something better to present than to just bash O’Reilly night after night.
And tanne, I know people have trashed MSNBC and Olbermann on this site and others, but you shouldn’t project ALL of those feelings onto me. I believe they’re doing a lot of things wrong, and I’m sure I’ve said so. But they do have some good programming. Their daytime programming is good, and I watch Dan Abrams, Scarborough and Tucker Carlson quite frequently. And I even like PARTS of Olbermann’s broadcasts when I see them. But if you choose not to believe me, whatever. I typically don’t bash the network to the extent that you outline in your every post. So stop it with assigning of feelings or statements to me.
Comment by Missy — March 12, 2006 @ 11:12 am
You said it all, tanne (and eloquently), except for one additional point: Countdown is not only the only broadcast of its kind on tv, it’s the ONLY NEWS broadcast (with some humor too) at that hour. But if you like right-wing talkradio-on-tv, and obviously 2 million+ a night do (about 400,000 in the 18-54 demo, or 20%), then you will never switch from O’Reilly, even if he appears to be imploding to the rest of us.
Comment by museglet — March 13, 2006 @ 3:05 am