In TV as in politics, every now and then a dark horse swoops in from behind to challenge for the lead.
That’s the position Fox News Channel’s rising prime-time star, Bill O’Reilly, is enjoying — ranked second in the ratings race among news-channel talk hosts behind CNN’s veteran “Larry King Live.”
And he’s not out to win friends, O’Reilly said, just viewers.
“I’m willing to have Americans say: `O’Reilly is an SOB and a mean bastard,”‘ the host said. “Many people think I’m rude, and I guess I could be considered that if I were at a cocktail party, but I’m not. I don’t want people to like me, I want them to respect me and watch the program.”
In December, O’Reilly’s weeknight talk show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” moved past CNBC’s “Rivera Live” with Geraldo Rivera. In January, “O’Reilly” edged out its 7 p.m. competitor, CNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews.”
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For the year, O’Reilly’s ratings are up 26 percent, while cable news networks’ prime-time ratings are down year-to-year on average, according to Nielsen data.
Critics say not only does he push a particular political point of view, his curt, often relentless style of questioning is offensive.
But after three years hosting the “Factor,” O’Reilly maintained that his show’s non-traditional structure and straight-ahead Q&A sessions with guests keep viewers tuned in.
O’Reilly opens each show with a monologue that’s a blend of commentary and news insight. “It’s just like Johnny Carson would come out on NBC’s `Tonight Show’ to do his signature monologue,” said O’Reilly. “It’s the same kind of psychological approach to engaging the audience right off the bat.”
He chats with guests and finishes the hour by answering to his critics and fans.
O’Reilly said he shuns the kid-glove style of interviewing that he says his competitors, particularly King, too often employ.
“My job is to ask a question and insist on an answer,” said O’Reilly.
The downside to being considered by some as an on-air attack dog, said O’Reilly, is that not everybody is willing to jump into the ring with him.
Among O’Reilly’s best guests are people in the public eye who are honest, or willing to give as good as they get. Some examples:
Former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, O’Reilly said, “admitted on the show that the Clinton administration can’t account for $1 billion that the government sent to Haiti.”
Actor George Kennedy “was brutally honest about his daughter who is a drug addict, and admitted the mistakes he’d made, but also talked about how he tried to help and adopted her young daughter as his own.”
O’Reilly said he doesn’t mind setting the agenda. When federal drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared, he said, “I told him the only way to solve the drug problem is through coerced drug rehabilitation that starts with judges ordering people into rehab centers. He didn’t agree with me two years ago, but has since adopted my plan.”
“Once a guest gets on their party line, I cut them down,” said O’Reilly. “There’s a lot of people who won’t come on the show because they know they’re going to have to answer my questions. They don’t know which way I’m going to go.”