Bill O'Reilly Smokes the Oscars After Ratings Plummet
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was happy to report he did not watch the Oscars. O’Reilly noted the program was a “ratings bomb,” which he surmised meant many Americans are as weary of Hollywood’s “idiotic bombast” about politics and other issues as he is.
Sunday night’s Academy Awards program, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, garnered the lowest rating of all time, with an 18.9 rating and 26.5 million people tuning in, versus 2017, when it had a 22.4 rating and 32.9 million people watching.
The total number of viewers dropped 19 percent from last year, and far eclipsed the previous all-time low of 31.8 million viewers in 2008, Deadline reported.
“As we predicted the Oscar telecast was a ratings bomb,” O’Reilly tweeted on Monday. “America has had enough of Hollywood posturing.”
“Was very happy not to watch the Oscar show last night because phonies on parade has zero appeal for me,” he said in an earlier tweet.
In an article accompanying the tweet, the best-selling author wrote, “Having been the Executive Producer on four TV films, I know the world. I had a relatively good experience partnering with legendary film guy Ridley Scott but I well understand the downside of show biz.”
O’Reilly noted there are some good people in the industry, including actor Gary Sinese, who helped the conservative commentator raise money for wounded warriors.
However, many in show business are “despicable human beings whose private lives are full of treachery and deceit,” O’Reilly said.
“So spare me the Oscar telecast where artistic achievement has been replaced by idiotic bombast and shallow posturing. That’s not entertainment,” he concluded.
The Oscars, as anticipated, turned political.
People magazine reported that multiple actors wore orange pins and ribbons in a campaign initiated by the left-wing gun control group Every Town for Gun Safety.
Kenyan-born actress Lupita Nyong’o and Pakistani-born actor Kumail Nanjiani voiced their solidarity with dreamers, a clear reference to those illegal immigrants enrolled in former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.
Whether Kimmel and Hollywood’s reputation for getting too political in the age of Donald Trump played a role in the ratings drop-off is not clear.
For those anticipating the comedian going there, Kimmel did not disappoint, taking swipes at Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
The late-night talk show host pointed out that Nyong’o (“Black Panther,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” and “12 Years a Slave”) was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya and then added, “Let the tweet storm from the president’s toilet begin!”
Kimmel later observed, “We don’t make films like ‘Call Me By Your Name’ (about an older man having sexual relations with a 17-year-old boy) to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence.”
During the past year, Kimmel has targeted Republicans multiple times in opening monologues on his late night program, taking aim at their efforts to repeal Obamacare. More recently, he has focused on the issue of gun control.
After the Parkland shooting last month, Kimmel accused Trump of doing “worse than nothing” and stating he’s “obviously mentally ill” based on his views of the Second Amendment.
As reported by The Western Journal, Kimmel retweeted a post during this same time period which read, “It would be hilarious if ISIS offered the GOP a ton of money cuz there’s no way they wouldn’t take it and they’d have to start being like ‘ISIS is what makes this country great.’”
An online poll conducted by YouGov last fall showed the talk show host’s favorability rating among Republicans dropped from 60 percent in the fall of 2014 to 24 percent in September 2017, while his favorability with Democrats ticked up from 68 to 74 percent.
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