BILL O’REILLY AND THE SIMPSONS: THE FEUD GROWS

Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly took another swipe at The Simpsons Tuesday for its recent barbs directed at Fox News. The Simpsons airs on the Fox TV network, a News Corp sibling of Fox News. “I don’t care about The Simpsons,” O’Reilly said during an interview with Don Imus, whose morning show airs on another corporate sibling, Fox Business Network. “But I think it’s really funny that Fox broadcasting takes shots at Fox News, which basically is paying the bills. Fox News makes so much money that it carries a lot of the other divisions of News Corporation, including the broadcast division.” In last Sunday’s Simpsons episode a Fox News helicopter, which during the previous episode bore the inscription: “Fox News: Not Racist but #1 with Racists,” turned up with a new banner: “Unsuitable for viewers under 75.” In an interview with today’s (Wednesday) New York Times, Simpsons producer Al Jean retorted that advertising money from the animated show winds up being distributed around News Corp and eventually winds up going to Fox News and O’Reilly. “Both ends of it benefit the ultimate News Corp. agenda,” Jean said. “We’re happy to have a little feud with Bill O’Reilly. That’s a very entertaining thing for us.” Jean also confirmed O’Reilly’s assumption: neither he nor anyone else connected with The Simpsons had ever been asked by anyone at News Corp to stop making fun of Fox News. Last Sunday, The Simpsons delivered its highest ratings of the season as 9.4 million viewers tuned in.