Ingraham's Ratings Are In... Advertiser Boycotts Crash and Burn
There was plenty of media attention focused on the advertiser boycott of Laura Ingraham’s nightly Fox News program that was spearheaded by Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg.
There’s been less media attention focused on the fact Ingraham’s viewership has not only remained strong, it is higher now than before the controversy involving Hogg began.
After returning to her nightly program April 9 following a 10-day vacation, Ingraham’s viewership has increased significantly, both in terms of overall viewers and viewers in the 25-54 demographic, the age group that is very important to advertisers.
For the week of April 9-13, “The Ingraham Angle” averaged nearly 3.1 million viewers, including nearly 685,000 in the 25-54 demo. For the week of March 26-29 — just prior to Ingraham’s vacation that began March 30 — her program averaged 2.23 million viewers overall and 460,000 in the 25-54 demo.
For that night alone, Ingraham’s program had an audience of roughly 4.67 million overall and 1.17 million in the 25-54 demo. It was also the No.1-rated program on all of cable news for her time slot.
The bottom line: Since the advertiser boycott began, Ingraham has lost 27 advertisers.
That number has been widely reported.
What hasn’t been widely reported is the fact her overall viewership is up 25 percent since her return, and 36 percent in the 25-54 demo.
Ace Hardware, one of the advertisers who originally announced it was pulling ads from Ingraham’s show, announced Friday it would be returning to the program, saying the company had “incomplete” information when it first announced plans to remove its ads.
“Advertising on any network or show, is in no way an endorsement from Ace of the content contained or spoken within that program. We appreciate the different points of view from our customers, and believe people should be treated with respect and civility,” the spokeswoman said.
“At this time, we have not altered our current media schedule; however, we regularly review our media strategy,” she added.
The controversy surrounding Ingraham began March 28, when she said Hogg had “whined” about not yet being accepted into college. That prompted Hogg to list all of her sponsors in a Twitter post and then ask his followers to boycott those companies.
Ingraham later apologized for her comment, saying she respected Hogg’s very high grade-point average and offering him the chance to appear on her program.
In the wake of the boycott, Fox News co-president Jack Abernathy issued a public statement in support of Ingraham, saying his network “cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts.”
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