Bill O'Reilly hosted the highest-rated show in cable news history for 16 straight years.
One disturbing trend has him sounding the alarm.
And Bill O’Reilly called out the biggest assault on free speech he’s seen in his career.
The Network News Blackout That Started the Day Trump Entered Politics
Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly didn't hold back in an interview with Piers Morgan.
"There's almost a total blackout in the U.S. for non-liberal voices on the network news," he told Morgan. "It's been in place ever since Donald Trump got into the political arena."
Then he made it personal.
"I'm the best-selling non-fiction author in the world," O'Reilly told Morgan. "I can't get booked – because I'm not a liberal."
He has the receipts: 15 national #1 nonfiction bestsellers, more trips to the top of the New York Times list than any single author since 2008, and a Killing series with over 17 million copies in print.
Last September on Newsmax, O'Reilly went further – revealing that he went straight to CNN's Anderson Cooper personally.
"I confronted Anderson Cooper himself because I know him," O'Reilly said. "I said, 'Hey, what's the problem? You're going to get much better ratings if you put me on. It's a good book.'"
Cooper's answer wasn't about ratings or editorial disagreement.
Management wouldn't allow it.
"Five major television outlets refuse to book any non-liberal guests," O'Reilly said.
FCC's Public Airwaves Rule the Networks Have Been Ignoring for a Decade
ABC, NBC, and CBS operate on public airwaves that belong to every American taxpayer.
The FCC's own manual states that broadcast licensees are "trustees of the public's airwaves" and must use the medium "to serve the public interest."
O'Reilly made the legal contradiction plain to Morgan: "The 3 networks use what they call the public airwaves – they must operate within the public interest."
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr agrees – and he's acting on it.
Carr's FCC launched formal investigations into ABC, CBS, and NBC in the first weeks of the Trump administration.
"If you're going to have a license to be a broadcaster," Carr said at a 2025 open meeting, "it comes with something called 'you have to serve the public interest.'"
The networks running the blackout are doing it on spectrum they don't own.
O'Reilly's challenge to Morgan cuts right to it: "You're telling me that's not an attack on freedom of speech!?"
FCC Targets The View as Brendan Carr Moves to Hold Networks Accountable
O'Reilly is still the author with more #1 nonfiction bestsellers than anyone alive, still pulling massive audiences to his subscription platform, still a household name for tens of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump twice.
The networks have no ratings argument for keeping him off the air.
They have an ideological one – and they're making it on airwaves they don't own, to audiences they're supposed to serve.
Last week, Carr confirmed the FCC opened formal enforcement proceedings against ABC's The View for violating the equal time rule after the show hosted a Democratic Senate candidate without offering his opponents equivalent airtime.
"Disney and The View have not established that that program is, in fact, bona fide news," Carr said on Fox News. "We've started enforcement proceedings. We're going to hold broadcasters accountable."
Carr's FCC already forced CBS to install a bias ombudsman as a condition of the Skydance-Paramount merger approval.
Trump extracted $16 million settlements from both ABC and CBS over their slanted political coverage.
Every network executive who signed off on this blackout did it on airwaves they don't own — and Carr just handed them the bill.
Sources:
- Jason Cohen, "Bill O'Reilly Tells Piers Morgan Conservative 'Blackout' Is 'Biggest Assault on Free Speech' He's Ever Seen," The Daily Caller, February 22, 2026.
- "O'Reilly to Newsmax: Networks Censor by Shunning Conservatives," Newsmax, September 23, 2025.
- Federal Communications Commission, "The Public and Broadcasting," FCC.gov, accessed February 2026.
- "Brendan Carr Targets News Outlets as Chair of the FCC," U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, January–July 2025.
- "Trump Calls for FCC to Revoke ABC and NBC Licenses," NPR, August 25, 2025.
- McKinley Franklin, "Brendan Carr Confirms FCC Has Begun 'Enforcement Proceedings' Against ABC's 'The View' Over Equal Time Issues," The Hollywood Reporter, February 19, 2026.
