But even Bill O’Reilly, it turns out, is subject to the forces of gravity. The host, it was announced Wednesday afternoon, is out at Fox. And this is ostensibly because of the recent revelation of yet more allegations of sexual harassment against him. As 21st Century Fox put it in a terse press release, “After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the Company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel.”

It’s notable that the company felt no need to elaborate on the “the allegations” in question; at this point, the conglomerate (and, ostensibly, the collective of crisis PR strategists who wrote this telling sentence on its behalf) seem to have figured, people understand roughly what those accusations have entailed. While Don Imus was fired for a racist comment, and Dan Rather was fired for an isolated journalistic indiscretion, and Brian Williams was suspended for exaggerating the truth … O’Reilly, the company’s statement on the matter suggests, was let go because of a pattern of behavior that is offensive not merely to the people who were its most direct targets, but to our broader ideals of decency, and respectfulness, and empathy.

It’s a line of logic borne out in the letter sent by Rupert Murdoch, the acting CEO of Fox News, to his staffers (a letter promptly leaked to CNN’s Brian Stelter):

Rupert's message to Fox staffers: "I understand how difficult this has been for many of you" pic.twitter.com/yUtICrPQjp — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 19, 2017

What the company doesn’t say in its release, and what Murdoch also leaves silent in his talk of “trust and respect,” is that the firing seems to have been occasioned by so much more than “the allegations” in question—a string of events that have compromised The O’Reilly Factor as an (alleged) arbiter of American civic life, and also, relatedly, as a money-making juggernaut. There were the daily protests outside Fox News’s headquarters in New York, objecting to O’Reilly. And there’s the fact that several high-profile advertisers—more than 50 of them, in all—suspended the campaigns they had been airing on his show. The advertisers included, The Daily Beast reports, carmakers, pharmaceutical companies, financial and insurance firms, and many more, and many of them expressed particular concern about the allegations’ effect on The O’Reilly Factor as an agent of American morality. As Mercedes-Benz said in a statement of its decision, “The allegations are disturbing and, given the importance of women in every aspect of our business, we don’t feel this is a good environment in which to advertise our products right now.”

Another factor in the death of the Factor: 21st Century Fox’s pending takeover of Sky TV, the European pay-TV company, in a deal said to be worth $14 billion. “On May 16,” New York magazine reported, “the British media regulator Ofcom is set to judge whether the Murdochs are ‘fit and proper’ to own such a large media property.” And “removing O’Reilly could appease critics and help close the Sky deal.”