I’d rather see Rachel Maddow “cherry pick the facts” (a dubious, if not unverifiable charge) than Billo plow them under. I, among others, peek in on the Factor (which may further skew the share in Bill’s favor) for the laughs. If I wanted facts from O’Reilly, he might do better to return to Inside Edition…

Fred

O’Reilly is the closest thing to Big Brother I’ve seen in TV. In the talking points memo section, he constantly speaks for the American people, and he literally tells you what to think! Of course, his arguments are often misleading (and on occasion outright lies), and the whole “fair and balanced” act makes you roll you eyes.

But this is not the bad stuff. It’s not good, but it’s quite bearable. Nobody buys the fair and balanced act by now, and you shouldn’t get your news from this sort of show anyway. It’s ok to have a bias in an opinion show. Bill has a great sense of humor and can be very entertaining. And he often invites, to his credit, opposing views.

My big complaint is, he NEVER invites the right people to the show. I really don’t care so much about lack of bias as I do about quality of guests. And this is the Factor fatal flaw. We have been in the economic crisis for 4 months now, and you haven’t seen any top economist in his show. I didn’t catch a single one. Come on Bill, feel free to invite the modern version of Milton Friedman, as long as it is someone who knows what he is talking about, and not some embarrassingly ignorant (albeit very confident) “analysts” like Dick Morris or Laura Ingraham. The same applies to other topics. Bill simply won’t bring in any experts or credible people to the show. So you get fed the same boring cliched, uninformed platitudes, and you never learn anything. Except, perhaps, with Megyn Kelly. With no spectacular credentials, she is interesting because she is actually familiar with the law.

So, I’m going with Rachel Maddow. She is biased. She is smug. She obviously thinks she’s funnier than she really is. But she also talks with Paul Krugman to discuss economy, and with Pat Robertson for politics, and with Glenn Greenwald for constitutional law. She gets the best guys. Plus, she makes a nice effort to present the big picture, however biased it might be.

Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent right-wing show to this. I would watch it.

Soon, bill will have more in the 25-54 category then keith gets from all viewers. I guess hate has a limited shelf life.

Also, as I and others predicted O’reilly would start to pull away signifcantly in feb after the elections hype were past them.

And it is so. Keiths show was a one time thing, time to find some balance now on MSNBC.

As far as Hannitys new show, dont watch it cause i cant stand him. But at least he is willing to debate with someone who disagree with him. Keitho has never had anyone on his show that did not cowtow his way of thinking. He has always been a coward.

HOBO

Bill is only ok, and Hannity is kinda nutty sometimes, though at least both of them allow guests who disagree with them.

Keith isn’t worth watching, because you never get the opposing viewpoint. From the little I have watched of Rachel’s show, she is as bad as Keith in that regard.

Olbermann, yeah I loved the Howard Stern comparison. He hit at the perfect time with the perfect jackass attitude people wanted because of their strong hate of GWB. Especially in the left.

However GWB is gone! What does he have now? Lost the Clinton voters, lost any shred of anyone centrist/right wing, all he has is the far left and that doesn’t sell very well to the public.

True, median is not mean, but anyone that thinks any show on a channel like CNN or FOX News has a great audience under the age of 25 is deluding himself.

If my rough math is close, 47.7% of Olberman’s viewers are in the oldest age group noted (35-64) in Thursday’s ratings breakdown. In the same Thursday data, 41.1% of O’Reilly viewers are in that older (35-64) demo. So which show skews older?

How loyal is KO’s ‘crazy niche’ audience? Well, If Howard Stern’s audience is any indication (and it is) we will see a huge drop off in his numbers as soon GWB leaves office. Howard’s audience left once Stern went to pay radio. He never recovered that audience and fell off the national stage. Same will happen to political light weights like Mr. Olbermann. Without Bush, KO will have no format. His ’special comments’ are still about folks in the Bush administration…lol. Take away GWB and all you you have is the angry man in the clown suit.

And yet calling them neo-cons is in no way bashing or attacking them? Gotcha.

The comments on this post are still relatively mild compared to the old O’Reilly vs. Olbermann posts.

Steven Colbert aptly described Olbermann as the type of person who would save his own urine. At one time Olbermann came off as witty and caustic, now he is merely pathetic and desperate.