Bill O'Reilly Covers His Own Poor Ratings With NBC Smear

News Hounds
Apr. 23, 2007

The O'Reilly Factor came in third in ratings in the 24 to 54 demographic on Thursday, 4/19/07. MediaBistro reported that O'Reilly came in behind Keith Olbermann and Paula Zahn which must have inspired O'Reilly's Ridiculous Item segment Friday night, 4/20/07, where he thanked viewers for FOX's incredible ratings and then claimed NBC was in ratings trouble.

O'Reilly announced the FOX News coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre beat CNN and "MSNBC came in last as usual". He added that " elements" at NBC attack FOX on a daily basis so it's only fitting to mention that AP reported that NBC is in " dire trouble" with the lowest ratings in the history in April.

The AP article did report low rating for NBC's primetime programming but this is what they reported for the news divisions of the three networks

ABC's "World News" was the nation's news leader for another week, averaging 8.8 million viewers (6.0 rating, 12 share), during a week dominated by Don Imus' comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team. NBC's "Nightly News" had 8.2 million viewers (5.7, 12), and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.6 million (4.6, 9).

Maybe O'Reilly's sour grapes attack was also spurred on by Keith Olberman's big week reported in TVNewser.