Hollywood Rpoerter 35 Most Powerful Bill O'Reilly - P 2012
Stephen Lovekin/Getty ImagesAfter last week’s news that both Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity were in negotiations to stay on with Fox News Channel for several more years, O’Reilly has officially inked a deal.
The network announced Tuesday that the O’Reilly Factor host had signed a mult-year deal to stay on with cable news’ top-rated broadcast.
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“Bill’s immense talent, intellect and raw convictions are an extremely rare combination in television and exemplify why The O’Reilly Factor has been the number one program in cable news for more than a decade,” said FNC chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in a statement. “He is a tremendous force in the business and has helped to make Fox News the success story it is today.”
The O’Reilly Factor has dominated all other hours of regularly scheduled cable news programming for 125 months running, recently averaging 2.9 million nightly viewers (595,000 in the 25-54 demo) in the first quarter.
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“Fox News has become the primary force in television news under Roger’s leadership,” added O’Reilly, “and I’m delighted to continue there for years to come.”
Hannity was another original FNC host when the network launched in Oct. 1996. His own deal is still expected to complete this week.
