AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Bill O'Reilly, marquee star of Fox News, announced on his show last night he's taking a long-planned vacation.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR")
BILL O'REILLY: Last fall, I booked a trip that should be terrific - not going to tell you where it is, but we have a contest on billoreilly.com. Guess where Bill's going. I'll have a full report when I return.
CORNISH: He'll be back on April 24 according to Fox News. But in the meantime, O'Reilly has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Major advertisers have fled his program. He denies he did anything wrong. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is here to talk more. Hey there, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So your read on this - vacation or something more?
FOLKENFLIK: Let's take him at his word. People at Fox say, you know, he plans his vacations months in advance. He tends to take vacations around this time for his kids' schedule. Yet very abruptly announced, he says, hey, I'm going; I'll be back April 24. So if you take him at his word, he's doing this, but he's doing it at a very precarious time for him.
CORNISH: Then you have something like 50 companies - right? - who have said to Fox News they don't want to advertise on his show, "The O'Reilly Factor." Now, how much damage has that done to him versus the network itself?
FOLKENFLIK: You know, the network says it's lost no money off this. That can't possibly been - be true. But they've shifted most of his ads and advertisers to other programs. They may have had to make some things up, give - shovel some extra ads to those corporations' way. But at the same time, they're netting most of the revenue.
What it is, is it's brand hit. If you're seeing major, let's say, car manufacturers, prestige manufacturers like Lexus or BMW or Mercedes saying, we don't want to be associated with that brand - Jenny Craig diet center saying, we can't be in that in that show, that's saying something to their consumers as well, saying, this doesn't represent us, and it probably doesn't represent you. It's a real brand hit. The question is how long that lasts.
CORNISH: Now, Fox News' former chairman Roger Ailes lost his job last summer over multiple allegations of sexual harassment, and I understand Fox is using the same law firm to do its internal investigation on the claims against Bill O'Reilly. So is this a good or a bad sign for him?
FOLKENFLIK: It's not good. You know, there was a woman named Wendy Walsh who complained, spoke to NPR, spoke to other news outlets, initially The New York Times about what she experienced when she was effectively auditioning for a paid regular weekly spot on his program which could give her a good salary and could give her extra payments for other speaking fees and other gigs that she might do outside the network. He basically made clear that she was going to get the job and then at the end of a dinner made clear she wouldn't get it when he refused to go back up to her hotel room, according to her accounts.
This New York law firm Paul, Weiss is reviewing it much as it evaluated the accusations of other women against Roger Ailes before the Murdoch family which controls Fox News fired or ousted Ailes last summer. It's not a good sign for O'Reilly this is, you know, something that could be a ticking time bomb for him depending of course on what that review finds.
CORNISH: You know, David, in so many ways, Bill O'Reilly is the face of that network. I mean under what circumstances could you really imagine him being forced out altogether?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, there are two things to think about. One is he brings in so much money for the network. Advertising is not the primary source of revenue, but it's a huge one for Fox News. He brings in in the nine figures a year from his show alone. And he sets up primetime for them as well in ensuring high ratings for the rest of them.
On the other hand, he's in some ways considered an embarrassment by Rupert Murdoch's sons Lachlan and particularly James Murdoch. They see this as not the forward-looking face of Fox. They had hoped, in some ways, particularly James, to bank the future on Megyn Kelly - you know, a more forward-looking, younger figure and also somebody - more centrist views, perhaps.
In this case, O'Reilly is doing well for them in the age of Trump with great ratings, but he's very uncomfortable for them. This is the kind of scandal that attaches even to such a marquee star as Bill O'Reilly.
CORNISH: That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik in New York. David, thanks so much.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATT HUGHES SONG, "PITCH BLACK CITY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
