Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, March 2, 2004

"Love him or hate him, O'Reilly has done a masterful job of using the groundswell of support for his conservative views to build himself into a multimedia brand," BusinessWeek gushed.

"For enduring that kind of pace, O'Reilly is reaping the rewards and helping lots of other media outlets cash in on his popularity as well."

Add TV, radio, books, newspapers and the Internet, and O'Reilly generates an estimated $60 million a year for his outlets through ad, book and merchandise sales, and syndication fees.

Says Stephen Rubin, president of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a unit of Random House Inc., "Bill is one of our cherished marquee authors."

Rubin's company has published four of O'Reilly's works. "It doesn't hurt that he shamelessly promotes his books," Rubin told BusinessWeek, which reported that O'Reilly's latest book "Who's Looking Out for You?" has sold an astonishing 644,000 copies since it was released last year.

According to BusinessWeek, O'Reilly has three separate corporations handling his business affairs – one each for TV, radio and his Web site, billoreilly.com.

He employs a staff of about 25 people, but brags that he writes the scripts for his TV-show scripts, speeches, newspaper column and books. Fox pays him $4 million a year, but that is just a drop in the bucket.

He is believed to be taking in tens of millions of dollars more on his books and Web site, and does one personal speaking appearance a month, charging an estimated $50,000 to $70,000 per appearance.

He says, however, that he gives a lot of his loot to charities, including Families of Military Casualties. "I'm not a materialistic person. I wasn't born with that gene," O'Reilly confided to BusinessWeek.

The Fox megastar makes his own spin outside the No Spin Zone. BusinessWeek reported on the week he spent in Los Angeles starting Feb. 15: chairing a benefit for Israel that raised $40 million, appearing on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno, having dinner with his boss, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox News parent News Corp., and Murdoch's wife, Wendi – while doing his radio and TV show every day. But that wasn't all.

According to BusinessWeek, he also watched Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," interviewed Gibson the next day, taped appearances on Fox's MADtv show and Fox Sports' "Best Damn Sports Show, " did a Barnes & Noble book signing for his "Who's Looking Out for You? " – and delivered a speech at a forum sponsored by radio station KABC, which broadcasts his show.

And for good measure he ended his whirlwind visit by interviewing Swamp Thing and HBO series Carnivale star Adrienne Barbeau for a quick segment on his TV show.

"It's mania, sheer mania when I'm on the West Coast," O'Reilly, the son of a Long Island accountant, told the magazine. How long can America's highest-rated cable news host keep up the hectic pace? As long as this year at least.

The current red hot 2004 election campaign is grist for the O'Reilly mill, but BusinessWeek wonders if he can keep this "explosive run" going for the long term. "He's popular because he is a renegade, a bit of a rebel," Simon Williams, CEO of brand consultant Sterling Group, told BusinessWeek.

"But like any celebrity brand in which you can rapidly emerge and then rapidly decline, I would focus, if I were him, on sustainability rather than popularity."

O'Reilly admits that the thought has crossed his mind, but says he can keep on top as long as he keeps campaigning for what he calls "the folks" and continues to lash out at liberal media elites, predatory priests, Hillary Clinton, corrupt CEOs, illegal aliens and "racial witch-hunters" who hijack policy debates with charges of racism.

Yet he gets angry when he's called a right-winger, explaining that he embraces such liberal policies as opposition to the death penalty and support of gay marriage.

For the time being, O'Reilly is forging ahead. He has no trouble attracting big-name sponsors. General Motors Corp. and SBC Communications Inc. are big spenders – perhaps because 31 percent of his viewers age 25 to 54 make more than $100,000 a year, says Fox.

According to Paul Rittenberg, Fox News' senior vice president for sales, "We see no resistance to Bill in the ad community," says Rittenberg.

"He's edgy and pushy, but in a good way." Moreover, his nightly "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News is one of the most watched shows on cable. It has an average of 2.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

In contrast, CNN's "Larry King Live, " draws an average of 1.3 million. Advertisers have been lining up for O'Reilly, doubling their spending, to nearly $30 million a year – about $12,000 for a 30-second spot – since 2000.

O'Reilly's nationally syndicated radio show is another cash machine.

"Rush Limbaugh might do three times the ad revenues for a three-hour show, after 25 years on the air, but with his two-hour show, Bill is one of the fastest-growing programs on radio," Peter Kosann, president of ad sales at Westwood One Inc., which syndicates O'Reilly's radio show to 400 stations nationwide, told BusinessWeek.

"So what's next?" BusinessWeek asks. More of the same.

O'Reilly is looking to enlarge the No Spin Zone to encompass another generation. He says a kids' book, "The O'Reilly Factor For Kids: A Survival Guide, " is due to be published in October by Fox-owned HarperCollins.

In just seven years since joining Fox News at its launch, O'Reilly has become a national presence. "Where I am now is where I should be," BusinessWeek quotes the star. "And that's just fine with the slew of companies riding the O'Reilly wave," the magazine concludes.

And also fine with all those folks out there who hang on his every word, read his books, listen to his radio show, flock to see him when he makes those personal appearances, browse his Web site, and read his newspaper columns. And that's no spin.

Editor's Note: Get Bill O'Reilly latest best-selling book with our FREE offer – CLICK HERE