When I first saw this clip on YouTube, I figured some O’Reilly-hater must have spliced an ad for the film into a recording of one of the Factor’s commercial blocks to try to embarrass O’R. So I checked my own recording of the program on Thursday night … and there it was, at around 8:37, right before the segment with Bernie Goldberg and Jane Hall. That in turn reminded me of a post we did this summer about an ad for MSNBC.com that aired during Hannity & Colmes. I thought at the time that it was lame for a competitor to be advertising on Fox News, but some commenters claimed that cable companies sometimes decide when and where ads will run, thus potentially absolving MSNBC. And in fact, when I compared my recording of the Factor to the clip below, the spots following the “Redacted” ad were different: my cable carrier cut to a commercial for Raymond James while the carrier in the YouTube clip cut to spots for Dunkin Donuts and Prilosec. Might the two cable companies each independently have stuck “Redacted” into an airing of the Factor?

Nope. Mark Cuban, the film’s producer, claims he bought the ad from Fox itself with specific instructions to air it during the Factor, an obvious ploy to embarrass O’Reilly. And darned if Fox didn’t let him. Cuban thinks O’Reilly probably knew the ad would air but I’m guessing he didn’t. Either way, looks bad.

It’ll probably get played off as a “if Cuban wants to sponsor my attempts to shut him down, he’s welcome to do so” thing.