Fox Mole Joe Muto on Working for The O’Reilly Factor
I said earlier that O’Reilly had more juice than anyone. That wasn’t entirely true. He had higher ratings than anyone, to be sure, but it could be argued that Hannity actually had more juice, owing to his closer affiliation and friendship with Ailes. The two of them are fellow travelers, both devoted to Republican causes. Bill is not on that train with them — he’s truly devoted only to O’Reilly-related causes. (Which just so happen to dovetail with Republican causes most of the time, but still …)
This has led to no small amount of tension between the parties. O’Reilly and Hannity, the two biggest stars at Fox News Channel, have basically no working relationship. Their shows are back-to-back, yet they’re barely on speaking terms. O’Reilly is convinced that Hannity is trying to sabatoge his show, and vice versa. The two of them fight constantly, almost entirely through intermediaries and over the pettiest of issues — mostly over guests. Both shows like to use Fox News analysts — specifically Karl Rove, Dick Morris, and Bernie Goldberg — and 90 percent of the squabbling is over which show gets which guest on which night. Roger did the situation no favors in 2011, when he spoke to Howard Kurtz of The Daily Beast and engaged in a bit of provocative muckraking:
“O’Reilly hates Sean [Hannity] and he hates Rush [Limbaugh] because they did better in radio than he did,” Ailes said. Bill was furious for weeks. Because it turns out there is one thing he hated even more than management meddling: someone insulting his ratings.