NO’REILLY!7
Advertisers flee amid sex raps
NEARLY TWO dozen companies have entered the no-spend zone.
Nineteen advertisers pulled out of Fox News or its “The O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday in the continuing fallout over Bill O’Reilly’s history of sexual harassment cases.
That means at least 21 companies have fled in light of the allegations. Dozens more have yet to say what they will do with their ad dollars.
BMW, Lexus, Bayer and Allstate were the biggest names to withdraw on Tuesday.
“We are concerned about the issues surrounding the program and we have suspended our advertising,” Allstate said in a statement.
Also suspending their spots are Nutrish, Rachael Ray’s pet food brand; Sanofi, the parent company of Gold Bond; the online marketing company Constant Contact; the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline; homegoods retailer Wayfair; the men’s shirt firm UNTUCKit; Esurance; T. Rowe Price; MileIQ; Credit Karma; True Car; Orkin; Ancestry.com and the Society for Human Resources Management.
A rep for Chevrolet told the Daily News it had “no immediate plans” to keep advertising with Fox News after its first-quarter buys run out.
“As a company, we are committed to diversity and equality across our entire workforce and have zero tolerance for behavior that contradicts that commitment,” the company said, without specifically citing O’Reilly as its reason.
The mass ad exodus started Monday with Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai running from the show.
The News reached out to about 50 other advertisers — including Microsoft, Hulu and Capital One — that did not respond.
“We value our partners and are working with them to address their current concerns about ‘The O’Reilly Factor.’ At this time, the ad buys of those clients have been re-expressed into other (Fox News Channel) programs,” said Paul Rittenberg, executive vice president of advertising sales for Fox News.
The New York Times on Saturday revealed Fox News and O’Reilly have paid $13 million to settle five sexual harassment lawsuits against the host, whose show was the most-watched cable news program of 2016. Women accused him of verbal abuse, unwanted advances and calling them while he appeared to be masturbating.
O’Reilly, who has denied all of the allegations, did not address the backlash during his Tuesday broadcast. The show featured an unusually high number of promo spots for the Fox Business Network channel.
Ads for several major companies ran during the hour-long program, including spots for AT&T and Home Depot.
The flood of ad exits came the same day a third black woman joined a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Fox News last week.
The woman said Judy Slater, a former controller in the payroll department, subjected her to years of racist remarks and mockery for being a breast cancer survivor. But the network refused to fire Slater after initial complaints because she “knew too much” about wrongdoing by former Chairman Roger Ailes, the suit says.
Ailes is now being sued by former Fox contributors who allege sexual harassment, while the network is being probed by the feds for allegedly concealing its case settlements from investors.