Report: Fox hires conservative talker to fill evening timeslot

Struggling to hold on to viewers in an early-evening time slot, Fox News has decided to give a controversial right-wing radio host a trial run hosting a new show.

The New York Times reports that conservative talker Laura Ingraham will join a rotating series of personalities on a new 5 p.m. program. Network executives "appear to be grooming her as a new talent for the network," according to the report.

Ingraham, who frequently fills in for the brash Bill O'Reilly on Fox, has made a name for herself with a popular talk radio show that is among the top-rated in the country. Fox will need the rating help, as its previous 5 p.m. report -- America's Election HQ -- placed third last week in the advertiser-coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic, the Times reports.

Like many who make their livings going on the radio to pontificate about politics, Ingraham has had her fair share of foot-in-mouth fiascoes. Liberal press watchdogs Media Matters for America has called out Ingraham more than two dozen times.

Author Rory O'Connor called her Right-Wing Radio's High Priestess of Hate in a recent column, which documented some of her more egregious errors in punditry.

In one of her most famous incidents, on Election Day 2006 Ingraham encouraged listeners to jam the phone line of a toll-free Democratic Party service for reporting voting problems. No tangible consequences came of it (the Democrats won anyway), but it did put Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy up in arms.

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