Just watching The Factor and noticed that this episode, like so many others over the last few months, Bill pimps his "Factor Staff gear" encouraging his viewers to buy a "The Factor" shirt. Outside of just being stupid, why would Bill waste time selling shirts when he already makes several million dollars per year? How many people actually buy them(nobody I know would)? Its just strange.

I hear Keith O. beats him in the 18-29 male viewer bracket that all the advertisers target in ratings every night. Maybe it's to make up lost ad revenue?

Keith Olbermann beats Bill O in overall ratings from time to time, but yeah, you're right, Olbermann wins hands down in the less than 70 years old market.

Keith O is the only one of the two of them, who gets facts right. He's also the only one that doesn't sexually harass his coworkers.

Maybe Bill O's tee shirts have a picture of Andrea Mackris and a lufa sponge?

Originally Posted by ECSuite_Russell

I hear Keith O. beats him in the 18-29 male viewer bracket that all the advertisers target in ratings every night. Maybe it's to make up lost ad revenue?

Haha. So you are saying Fox is asking him to do it to make extra money off of t-shirt sales? Even if what you say is true, given O'Reilly has double double the amount of viewers overall, I doubt they are hurting for for advertising dollars. Maybe its because older folks are more likely to buy something like that and it is a real revenue generator, kind of like selling Che shirts to young folk. It still seems like a really odd product to mix with news commentary.

Well I wasn't being completely serious.

I have no idea why he sells shirts, it can't be a huge revenue stream. It just seems kind of tacky. I can't imagine wearing a news network shirt from anywhere. Unless I was pretending to be a camera man with the press core to sneak into some sort of event.. Hmmmmm.

Russell is right, on a number of points. The most important of which is that it's tacky. (But we should expect tacky from a man who was literally shocked that black people in a restaurant weren't shouting "Mother f---er, I want my ice tea!")

If the question is why is Bill O peddling cafe press tee shirts (?), my guess is the answer would be branding. He's probably trying to create a positive feedback loop. (That may be the first time the word "positive" has applied to Bill O'Reilly? Maybe "death spiral of lies and spin" is a better term.) Anyway, the idea might be that when you see Rush Limbaugh's face on the side of a bus, it's not very impressive, and all most people think is "I wonder where the drugs are?" But when you see another person choose to wear an ad, somebody who actually paid for a Rush Limbaugh tee shirt, instead of him paying the public transit system to carry his face, that's a lot more impressive. Seeing people wearing a Metallica shirt might make you more likely to go buy a Metallica album, if you liked heavy metal to begin with. Other people are - they must be popular - we all want to be part of the in crowd. There are no shortage of allegations that record companies do this, buy up records in stores that are sampled for Billboard, to make those records appear popular, which makes them more genuinely popular, and brings in more revenue from their sales.

So, on that note, if the question is why, the best answer I can think of from the top of my head is that it's a ratings gimmick, that somebody wants to make Bill O's show seem more popular in order to pump up the ratings. I might be entirely wrong, but we do know this is generally how popularity works, and done in other industries.

From Wikipedia

For example, observers of journalism in the mass media describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse. One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.
Due to this condition arising in online communities, participants may find their own opinions constantly echoed back to them, and in doing so reinforce a certain sense of truth that resonates with individual belief systems. This can create some significant challenges to critical discourse within an online medium. The echo-chamber effect may also impact a lack of recognition to large demographic changes in language and culture on the Internet if individuals only create, experience and navigate those online spaces that reinforce their "preferred" world view.

Originally Posted by cbwm

a real revenue generator, kind of like selling Che shirts

Somehow this irony is lost on the people buying those t-shirts at The Gap.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

Somehow this irony is lost on the people buying those t-shirts at The Gap.

Haha. Perhaps. After thinking about it, I can imagine the 60+ crowd buying "The Factor" t-shirts and the old gals chatting about what a hunk O'Reily is. I guess for every product there is a market(Just like Che shirts). Its funny because I don't own one (Che shirt) but my mother does. Then again, shes practically a card carrying communist(Academia).

Update: AC360 now selling T-Shirts, or at least incentivizing viewership with T-Shirts. Also, it turns out 100% of the proceeds from the O'Reilly clothing sales goto charity. I guess that pretty much knocks the "cheese" factor of selling clothing on a commentary news program back down to zero.

The cheese factor goes back up when you figure out that Reilly is pocketing 60%

Originally Posted by highanddry

The cheese factor goes back up when you figure out that Reilly is pocketing 60%

Of course you would have to find evidence of that to create said "Cheese" factor. Given that discovery of this type of embezzlement would irreparably damage the reputation of his show and likely reduce his multi million dollar annual salary, I find the possibility of it unlikely.

How about Limbaugh operating on so much vicodin he couldn't see straight all while condemning "drug addicts." I don't think that irreparably damaged his "reputation."
But that said, it is unlikely..


He's probably pocketing more like 80%

Haha. You got to remember that most people appeal to the greater greed. In Limbaugh's case, he had no choice because he was addicted. In O'Reillys case, it is simply more profitable to leave it be.

As far as hypocrisy goes, O'Reilly has already been down that road and paid the price. It amazes me but he still preaches morality from his bully pulpit, even after he got caught red handed in a sexual harassment scandal. He lost half his viewers almost literally overnight when that scandal broke. Now he only has double to triple the viewers Olbermann has. I'm thinking he's thinking he cant afford another scandal.

The charity thing makes sense. If they say 100% I believe 100%, lying about something like that can get you into a lot of trouble. It's why charities are normally vague, ie "a portion of the proceeds will be donated.."

Where you can end up with a lot of fraud is within the charitable organization though. I read once that charities only have to spend a certain percentage of the money they raise towards their cause, it was 60% or 40%, I can't remember which. For example the red cross spends around 10% of the money it makes on "administration and overhead" where as the united way is closer to 50%...

I heard these figured several years ago, it was something related to katrina but I don't remember exactly what.

Better be extremely clear on which charity, tho. If you buy a tee shirt and any of the proceeds go to an Islamic charity, you can find yourself being tortured in Guantanamo Bay for it. Junior Bush intends to try "60 to 80" of the 775 prisoners brought to Gitmo since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. 420 of them have already been released without charge. Many among them were brought to Gitmo in the first place for having donated to an Islamic charity, so I'd be awful careful when Bill O'Liely and charity are brought up in the same thread!