O'Reilly Sex Suits: What Is Lisa Bloom's Motivation?

Court TV host Lisa Bloom has been awfully outspoken against Bill O'Reilly in her numerous recent appearances on The Today Show, MSNBC and CNBC. She's been "practically reiterating the Morelli talking points word for word," sources point out. Is this why?: Sources close to the situation say Bloom is bragging to her colleagues at Court TV that she's "going to make the deal and broker the settlement talks with Morelli and Fox."

A Fox insider responded tonight: "Lisa Bloom's a hack with no credibility or ratings -- there's a reason she's on Court TV. Her main accomplishment in life has been riding her mother's coattails."

O'Reilly Sex Suits: Mackris's New Accusations

Quoting the AP: The "Fox News Channel producer who filed a sex harassment lawsuit against talk show host Bill O'Reilly filed new accusations Tuesday, alleging she has lost her job because she complained to Fox about her alleged mistreatment." But: "A lawyer for O'Reilly and Fox denied that Andrea Mackris has been fired or retaliated against in any way." More...

Xfire/Stewart: Web Streams Surpass TV Ratings

Cory Bergman finds the hidden angle in this never-ending Xfire saga: "The Jon Stewart showdown on CNN Crossfire has surpassed 800,000 views on iFilm and just under 70,000 BitTorrent downloads. Crossfire averaged 550,000 viewers in Nielsen's third-quarter ratings. So unless Crossfire pulled off a huge night on Friday, more people watched the Stewart-Carlson exchange on the web than watched it on TV -- a first for a major cable news show." Check out Lost Remote...

There's No Substitute For The Real Bill

"Even by covering O'Reilly wall-to-wall, MSNBC's ratings have not been able to climb out of the basement," a cable insider pointed out today. The network averaged a "whopping" 225,000 households in total day and 326,000 in primetime. Deborah Norville devoted several segments to O'Reilly, and only averaged 227,000 HH. Meanwhile, O'Reilly's ratings have surged since the lawsuits were filed on Wednesday. He averaged 3.4 million viewers again on Monday night...a 40% increase over Q3.

Iraq Needs More (& Better) Media, FNCer Says

"Improving the media industry in Iraq" would "go a long way to shoring up the foundations of this new democracy," rah-rah FNC embed Scott Rutter says in a FOXNews.com commentary. He offers several strategies to improve the media environment...

ABC News Begins "Watchdog Your Vote" Effort

Halperin, Todorovich, Ambinder, and co. will be getting even less sleep in the next two (three? four?) weeks. ABC News kicks off its 2004 "Watchdog Your Vote" project today, and explains its plan in The Bible. "We're seeking YOUR help," they write. They're looking for "dirty, rotten, unfair or questionable political communication," and "problems or issues with the mechanics of casting your ballot...All it takes is an e-mail to The ABC News Political Unit." More...

NBC Tops Evening Newscasts Again (& Again)

In case you're keeping track: NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw was the "dominant network evening newscast" last week, the network notes today. Some of the #'s:
Total viewers: NBC: 10,006,000 / ABC: 8,922,000 / CBS: 6,934,000
In homes: NBC: 6.9 rating, 14 share / ABC: 6.3, 13 / CBS: 4.9, 10
25-54 demo: NBC: 2.7 / ABC: 2.5 / CBS: 1.9

CNN's Costello, and 'Daybreak,' Moving To NYC

Carol Costello is heading north, and her CNN early morning show 'Daybreak' is following. The network "will soon permanently move Costello's morning show to New York," NewsBlues reports. Costello married Tim Snyder, dean of Fairfield University in Connecticut, over the summer, and the couple had been maintaining the relationship through weekend airplane trips...

14 Days: Evening Newsers Not Wasting Time

"Network evening news programs are concentrating more on substantive presidential campaign issues than the horse race," the AP reports, citing an analysis by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. David Bauder calls it an "about-face from four years ago..."

No Love Lost Between Stewart & Xfire

Lisa de Moraes has a fun wrap-up of the Stewart/Crossfire saga in this morning's Post. "By yesterday afternoon, both sides had had three days to figure out how to spin it, and damage control began in earnest," she explains...

O'Reilly Sex Suits: Morning Briefing

> Andrea Mackris had a crush on O'Reilly, and she voluntarily engaged in "intimate" chats with him, a former friend of Mackris said in a sworn statement to O'Reilly's lawyers. The NY Daily News has details...

> More from the NYDN: O'Reilly's lawyer says Mackris "spoke to a well-known publisher in January this year." "They have got nothing and they are grasping at straws," her attorney jabs back...

> What is this all about?

> Mackris's lawyer says she hasn't been to work since her lawyers started meeting with Fox -- so why was she spotted there the first week of October? An anonymous e-mailer also wonders why she came back to clean out her desk on Sunday the 10th, when she thought no one was watching...

"I'm Not A Victim," O'Reilly Says

Bill O'Reilly has entered a "no talking zone" lately, refusing to discuss the dueling sex suits relating to his relations with a former Factor employee. But on the Radio Factor this afternoon, he seemed to break his silence, at least for a moment. Johnny Dollar has the quote and MP3 file:

"I had to protect my family. This is my fault. I was stupid, and I'm not a victim. But I can't allow certain things to happen. And I appreciate your support; we get thousands of letters. But I'm not--I am stupid. I am a stupid guy, and every guy listening knows how that is. That we are very stupid at times. But, there comes a time in life where you got to stand and fight. And I knew these people were going to do this, I knew they were going to do everything they could to try to destroy me and the channel. And I just made a decision that I'm just going to ride it out, and I'm going to fight them..."