Twenty-two advertisers have pulled out of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” following a Saturday story in the New York Times discussing the millions of dollars paid by Fox News to address allegations by five women of sexual harassment on the part of host Bill O’Reilly.
Those pulling their ads include Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, Allstate, Bayer, BMW, Coldwell Banker, Constant Contact, Credit Karma, Esurance, GlaxoSmithKline, Hyundai, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Orkin, Sanofi, the Society for Human Resource Management, T. Rowe Price, TrueCar, UNTUCKit, Wayfair and The Wonderful Company.
Former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes was dismissed last summer amid his own sexual harassment scandal.
To compound O’Reilly’s troubles, his show has of late been trailing MSNBC’s left-leaning “The Rachel Maddow Show” in a number of demos, including the so-called adults 25-54 “news demo.” "Just like other prominent and controversial people, I'm vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity,” said a statement issued by O’Reilly. “In my more than 20 years at Fox News Channel, no one has ever filed a complaint about me with the Human Resources Department, even on the anonymous hotline."
