Fox News host is paying big price for her ugly commentary.
More than 140 television advertisers have dropped Laura Ingraham's Fox News program since she publicly bullied a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school gun massacre earlier this year.
That stunning rebuke from Madison Avenue represents more than 60 percent of the advertising base that Ingraham's show enjoyed at the start of 2018.
Overall, "The Ingraham Angle" now airs roughly 11 minutes of commercials each night, according to Politico.
Prior to the controversy that Ingraham ignited in March when she mocked Parkland activist David Hogg for getting rejected from several colleges, the program used to average 15 minutes of commercial each night.
Before the controversy erupted, according to Politico, 229 brands advertised on “The Ingraham Angle." As of last month, just 85 did.
Additionally, the blue-chip advertisers Ingraham used to attract — such as Geico, Arby’s, and Liberty Mutual — have been replaced by brands such as HomeToGo.com and ClearChoice Dental Implants.
“There are still a number of advertisers that don’t want to be associated with the program," said Jon Swollen, chief research officer at Kantar Media, which conducted the advertising analysis. "Brands are skittish about alienating potential customers."
Swollen describes Ingraham's remaining advertisers as "bottom feeders," because they look to buy leftover space on cable TV at discounted rates and don't really care which channels their ads run on.
Ingraham publicly belittled Hogg just six weeks after 17 people were killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. When advertisers immediately started to flee, Ingraham offered up an apology of sorts, but it was too late.
The host has a long history of ugly race baiting and hateful programming.
"Ingraham's controversies have also worn on her staff, contributing to low morale, according to two people familiar with the show’s dynamics," Politico reports.
Note that both Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck lost their Fox News jobs after advertisers abandoned their shows when the hosts became embroiled in controversies.
With so many sponsors fleeing O'Reilly and Beck's shows, it simply didn't make sense for Fox News to air programs that could not be properly monetized.
Today, the rather dubious spin that a company executive gave Politico about Ingraham's show hosting so few advertisers is that the cable channel wants to have fewer sponsors. (i.e. Fewer commercial breaks means less of a chance viewers will change the channel.)
That's the spin. The truth is, more than 140 of Ingraham's former sponsors want nothing to do with her.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
