Last week, Bill O'Reilly was unceremoniously ousted from his long-running gig at Fox News following reports involving the payouts of multiple sexual harassment lawsuits over the years . He was on vacation when it all came to a head, and outside of some Twitter activity, he was relatively quiet in the days following his firing. But now, O'Reilly is back to basics, focusing on turning his popular website into the new headquarters for all things No Spin, and it's where he unleashed his first big message to fans, sharing his feelings about not being on TV anymore.
I am sad that I'm not on television anymore. I was very surprised how it all turned out. I can't say a lot, because there's much stuff going on right now. But I can tell you that I'm very confident the truth will come out, and when it does, I don't know if you're going to be surprised - but I think you're going to be shaken, as I am. There's a lot of stuff involved here.
Understandably, at least some of the reasoning behind Bill O'Reilly's relatively quiet nature in the aftermath of his firing is because there are so many different and complex elements involved, from the sexual harassment claims themselves to the lawsuits' settlements to how knowledgable the network and its execs were in all of it. Because of the closed-case nature that went into finagling the settlements, no one involved is legally allowed to publicly comment on the details. But O'Reilly has little trouble doubling down on the fact that the "truth" is going to come out at some point, though he refrains from coming out and saying that everyone will rue the day they crossed him.
Without his TV show there to put him back in front of millions of people on a daily basis, Bill O'Reilly basically has two things he can currently roll forward with: keep on denying that anything happened and start talking about anything else to get everyone's attention off of that other stuff. Which is where the renewed focus on www.BillOReilly.com comes into play.
The former cable news stalwart explained in his statement and podcast, which was made free to all visitors and not just subscribers, that the goal is to turn the online No Spin News into something resembling a standard news program in the future, and all invovled are planning to incorporate guest interviews and longer segments. For now, it's mostly a headline rundown and a "listener mail" bit, but expect to see some major growth there in the future, assuming Bill O'Reilly doesn't find his way onto another network (or into a Presidential administration) soon.
At this point, Fox News has removed The O'Reilly Factor from the schedule completely and replaced it with Tucker Carlson Tonight, hosted by the bowtie-wearing network vet. The move has put quite a spotlight on Carlson, and his show has seen the return of the many advertisers that pulled commercials from Fox News during O'Reilly's former timeslot. So while we won't see Stephen Colbert's Papa Bear at his former home in the near future, you can definitely catch him online on his website, and then you can head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide to see what else the small screen has to offer in the near future.
