Continued insanity on TV...

Trump-aligned network courts O’Reilly

Newsmax CEO is scheduled to meet with the ex-Fox News host next week to discuss a new TV gig.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN and JASON SCHWARTZ

Newsmax, the conservative media network with strong ties to President Donald Trump, is courting disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for a potential deal that would return him to cable television, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy told POLITICO on Wednesday.

O’Reilly and his agent are scheduled to meet in New York next week with Ruddy to discuss a show on Newsmax TV, a three-year-old network that currently reaches 35 million households, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Newsmax has already established a relationship with O’Reilly, letting him use its podcast studios for several hours each week in New York since his dismissal from Fox News as an informal favor, Ruddy said.

“We don’t think Bill O’Reilly’s career is over. He does have a market. We’re very interested and exploring looking at that,” Ruddy said. “He’s a significant talent. There are obviously issues we’d have to deal with with him and the public to see how that could fit. We’re open to having that conversation with him. We’ve not closed the door to having him on Newsmax TV.”

For O’Reilly, who was forced out of Fox News in April amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment, joining up with Ruddy would mark a dramatic return to a national platform. For Newsmax TV, it would provide an injection of star-power, just as the conservative network is seeking to grow.

An O’Reilly spokesman declined a request for comment about the talks with Newsmax.

Ruddy acknowledged that the sexual harassment issues surrounding O’Reilly would have to be further discussed with the former Fox star—though they do not appear to be enough to keep Newsmax from pursuing a deal. “I think serious issues have been raised and they have to be reviewed,” Ruddy said.

At least six women who’ve alleged harassment by O’Reilly have received payouts either from the Fox parent company or the host himself, according to The New York Times. Their allegations include repeated harassment, non-consensual sexual relationships and sharing of pornography, the Times reported.

O’Reilly has forcefully defended himself from any allegations, denying all wrong-doing. “This is horrible, it’s horrible what I went through, horrible what my family went through,” O’Reilly told the Times when he sat down with the paper last month to discuss its reporting that he had reached a $32 million settlement with an accuser in January. “This is crap, and you know it.”

In September, O’Reilly told Matt Lauer on the Today Show that the allegations against him represented “a political and financial hit job.”

He also appeared that month on Newsmax TV, after its website posted an article about one of the former Fox host’s accusers being arrested in 2015 for making a false crime report.

“I don’t feel vindicated because this is a much bigger thing than that,” O’Reilly told the Newsmax interviewer. As O’Reilly blasted his dismissal from Fox News, his interviewer sympathized, noting “a rush to judgment, clearly.”

Newsmax TV, launched in 2014, is in discussions with other cable carriers to expand its reach beyond 35 million households. The company recently signed a deal with DISH Network to bring its viewership to 50 million households, according to a source familiar with the deal.

DISH declined to comment.

Newsmax is also exploring financing options to grow the network, and it’s potentially looking at going public, according to a person familiar with the network’s thinking. That type of expanded platform could prove enticing to O’Reilly—and adding a high-profile name like his could conceivably juice the company’s valuation.

O’Reilly has lately been the subject of other post-Fox employment rumors. A recent NBC report linked him to Sinclair Broadcast Group, another conservative outlet that’s looking to grow its footprint. But during a conference call with Wall Street analysts Wednesday, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley dismissed interest in hiring O’Reilly.

“We get approached by people all the time, which is probably where these reports were coming from,” Ripley said. “He did approach us. We do not have any interest in hiring him.”

Ruddy, along with some other officials of rival conservative networks, has come out strongly against Sinclair’s $3.9 billion bid to take over Tribune Broadcasting, which would give it ownership of stations covering 72 percent of the United States. Ruddy has said the merger, which is awaiting approval by the Federal Communications Commission, would squeeze out competition.

For more than two decades, O’Reilly ruled the cable news airwaves from his 8 p.m. perch on Fox News. But his career quickly unraveled after the Times reported in April that the network had continued to employ him—even recently signing him to a lucrative new contract—despite both O’Reilly and the Fox parent company having reached settlements with multiple women who had accused the host of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior.

Following the reports—and under pressure from women’s rights groups—more than 50 advertisers ditched O’Reilly’s show, according to media reports. Within Fox, employees expressed outrage over his continued employment, the Times said. Before long, he was forced out.

If Ruddy signs O’Reilly, he could face similar pressures about the host’s past conduct. The South Florida-based Newsmax CEO is a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private club in Palm Beach and friend of the president. He visited the president in the Oval Office the day after his February speech to a joint session of Congress. Ruddy also was at the White House in June and broke the news via a PBS interview that Trump was being urged by some of his top aides to consider firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

A former newspaper reporter who covered the Bill Clinton White House during the Kenneth Starr investigation, Ruddy launched Newsmax.com in 1998 and boasts of seven million unique visitors each month.

At the time that he left Fox News, O’Reilly was still tops in the ratings, reaching millions of viewers per night.