Why do we care about Bill O'Reilly?

(Cross-posted on The Daily Kos.)

I don't mean to take what might even be interpreted as a minor potshot at Hunter, who I sincerely believe is one of the most talented diarists appearing on Daily Kos. But after reading his amusing front-page diary about the unintentionally amusing Bill O'Reilly and his newly minted hate list, a thought crossed my mind:

Why are we wasting any time on this asshole?

I know that we're all supposed to be upset over his comments regarding how Osama and Co. should blow up San Francisco's Coit Tower. As a proud resident of the Bay Area, I'd rather not see terrorists blow up anything around here. If they do need some local targets, however, I could point them to a couple of places in my birthplace of Hayward that could use a kick-start in their redevelopment efforts. But I digress.

Now the Falafel King is putting together a hate list -- a list, ironically, on which most reasonable people would want to find their names. If Bill O'Reilly has you on his "friends for life" list, let's face it. You're doing something wrong.

Anyway, back to my main point. Why doesn't our community view Bill O'Reilly for what he is -- a sad little gremlin who says stupid and outrageous things in order to generate enough buzz to keep his name out there in the mainstream. Contrary to what many of us seem to think, Bill O'Reilly's greasy hands touch very few people. According to mediabistro.com, O'Reilly's cable television show reaches less than 3 million viewers. Fox -- the real Fox, not its cable faux news stepchild -- just announced it was shelving "Arrested Development" because of poor ratings. "Arrested Development" is watched by 4 million viewers, more than a million more than The Falafel Factor, and Fox couldn't shut down "Arrested Development" quickly enough.

O'Reilly's radio ratings don't fare much better. In Denver, he's been replaced by third-tier conservative blabbermouth Glenn Beck -- Glenn Beck, for crying out loud -- after getting his ass handed to him by Ed Schultz, among others. Al Franken beats him in New York and in several other markets. O'Reilly is on 400 stations, sure, but not many people pay attention to him. In most markets, his ratings are well behind those of three or four other talk hosts. From station to station, he is frequently the least-listened-to English-language talk host airing in his slot. Sean Hannity also generates poor ratings results, but O'Reilly would give his left nut to have Hannity's numbers -- that's how low O'Reilly's Arbitron numbers actually are.

Sure, we can continue to make a stink each time O'Reilly shares with the world his latest imbecilic piece of vitriol. We can threaten to boycott his advertisers. We can send him e-mails letting him know that we think he and the falafel he rode in on can take a long walk off a short pier and hug an octopus, we can all get our names on his little hate list, and all that. But why bother? Bill O'Reilly is just another neo-conservative fanatic screaming from the mountaintops. He is white noise. He would honestly have to work hard -- real hard -- to be less relevant than he already is.

Bill O'Reilly makes extreme comments in order to get people talking about him. (Heck, even this diary gives the guy more cyberink than he's worth.) He knows his comments are extreme and stupid -- he's made a career out of being a nutjob who can get himself noticed. Even so, an overwhelming majority of Americans don't even know who the guy is, let alone that he has both a radio show and a television program.

Bill O'Reilly is a spectacular sexually harassing falafel-eating failure. He's radio's Dennis Rodman, only without the dress. He is the William Hung of the conservative media cabal. He should be treated as such.

Comments

[frank kotraba]

Jackson:

Will you please comment on Chris Matthews? I don't know what happened to him.

[winston]

Ah, the Letterman of old.

The "Factor" trying to improve his falling ratings by going on the Letterman yesterday (01/03/06)

http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/dave_tv/ls_dtv_big_show_highlights.shtml

[Ron Avenida]

Fascinating!

[Win]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHUGCkROwJE