O'Reilly to make $10 million a year

Mr. "We'll Do It Live! Fuck It!" strikes again.

Bill O'Reilly - one of the media's many champions of right-wing vitriol, who once threatened to blow up San Francisco's Coit Tower - has a new 4-year contract with the sorry-assed Fox News Channel. Under his new contract, O'Reilly will make $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 per year.

Ten million a year to spew bile on teevee??? Isn't this the same Bill O'Reilly who always talks about what a big working-class guy he is? (He grew up rich, but that's another matter.) How can O'Reilly's bullshit be worth $10,000,000 a year?

I have to take issue with the piece in the New York Daily News that said Faux News is "the top-rated cable news network." I've heard this claim countless times before, but I've yet to see any numbers to this effect. Apologists for the right-wing channel have also claimed that Pox News achieved first place despite being on fewer cable systems than CNN - though every system in the U.S. that I know of got Fox News when it started, and some now won't carry CNN (like that chain of hotels in the Midwest).

Everyone knows damn well that if I was conservative, I'd be given a national TV or radio gig worth millions a year, but since the media ain't big on balance, it ain't likely to happen.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2008/10/21/2008-10-21_bill_oreilly_signs_contract_for_four_mor.html)