Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show lost more than half its commercials since last week, when Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg called on advertisers to boycott “The Ingraham Angle.”
From January 1, 2018 through March 28, Ingraham’s hour averaged 14 minutes and 33 seconds of paid commercial time, according to Kantar Media.
And then she called David Hogg a whiner.
Her criticism on Wednesday, March 28 led Hogg to call for a boycott of sponsors of the show. That sparked an advertiser bailout, and on Thursday, “The Ingraham Angle” lost so many sponsors that it had only 8 minutes and 45 seconds of ad time — down 40 percent from average. She shed another minutes and 45 seconds the next night, leading to a total decline of 52 percent.
Ingraham lost five of her Top 20 advertisers: Bayer, Hulu, Johnson & Johnson, Liberty Mutual, and Wayfair.
Others that bailed include Entertainment Studios, Office Depot, Expedia, Principal Finance, Honda, Progressive Insurance, Jenny Craig, Ruby Tuesday, Jos A Bank, Stitch Fix, Nestle, TripAdvisor, and Nutrish.
In case you gave up Twitter for Lent, Parkland shooting survivor Hogg called for advertisers to boycott the Fox News show after she said the high schooler “whines about” college rejections.
“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.),” she tweeted last week.
Ingraham’s comments were met with widespread criticism from many who took her tweet as mean-spirited. Several hours later, Hogg joined in, tweeting out a list of what he said were Ingraham’s top advertisers, and urging his Twitter followers to contact them.
Ingraham later apologized on Twitter, but that didn’t stop her advertisers’ flight.
“On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland,” she tweeted Thursday. “For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how ‘poised’ he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion.”
Ingraham announced on Friday, at the end of a very rough week, that she was taking a vacation.