During the April 27 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly dramatically overstated the amount of nightly viewers of his television program, saying, “I already got the 6 million people watching me every night.” In fact, according to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor averaged 2,274,000 viewers a night in the first quarter of 2006.

The Nielsen television ratings monitored “all regularly scheduled programs” airing from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, which included the Factor, which airs at 8 p.m. While the show's repeat broadcast -- which airs at 11 p.m. ET -- was not included, it would need to have nearly twice as many viewers as the initial, primetime broadcast for O'Reilly to reach the 6 million viewers he claimed watch his program each night. Additionally, the number of Factor viewers in the key marketing demographic -- 25 to 54 years old -- was down 24 percent from the first quarter of 2005, averaging about 450,000 viewers.

From the April 27 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: It doesn't matter what my percentage of gain is at The Factor in the world of cable news. I am so far ahead of everyone else, if I grow 1 percent or lose 1 percent, it doesn't matter. I already got the 6 million people watching me every night. If one of my competitors adds 200,000 viewers, they can run around screaming, “Oh, look at our percentage. Look how high we're up.” And it's nothing, it means nothing, because they have nothing.