• Los Angeles Times, Sunday, August 2, 2009 9:52 PM

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jeffrey Immelt want to end the sniping between their employees -- anchors Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann. The two top execs met at the Microsoft CEO summit in Redmond, Wash., recently to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels, according to insiders. At issue is the ongoing conflict between MSNBC's Olbermann, an outspoken liberal, and Fox's O'Reilly, a conservative.

Fox News and MSNBC are not really vicious competitors. Despite their cable news rivalry, their parent companies are partners in online TV site Hulu, and both companies produce TV shows that they try to sell to each other's networks, meaning a hit for one will generate revenue for the other.

Immelt and Murdoch are said to have carried their message of detente back to their respective news channels in early June, but it doesn't seem to have quite gotten through. Whether the feuding fuels ratings is hard to tell. "The O'Reilly Factor" dominates its 8 p.m.-9 p.m. time period, averaging more than 3 million viewers in July. That's almost three times as many viewers than for "Countdown with Keith Olbermann."

Read the whole story at Los Angeles Times »