The Anti-Gun Boycott of Laura Ingraham Doesn’t Go Exactly as Planned

Last month, talk show host and Fox News personality Laura Ingraham was hit by a boycott led by anti-Second Amendment activists and various AstroTurf MoveOn.Org groups. The boycott scared away some of Ingraham’s sponsors. She went from being able to sell 14:33 of paid advertising in each hour to only 8:00. Fox News announced it was standing by her. She took a week off on a previously scheduled vacation and came back. Everyone was watching her ratings. How did that turn out?

Fox News host Laura Ingraham has lost advertisers, but she’s gained ratings: Last week she earned her best ever.

Ingraham went on vacation on March 30 after advertisers began bailing on her show because she mocked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg for “whining” about not getting into colleges. But in her return to the airwaves last week, she was up 25 percent in total viewers and 36 percent in the key 25-54 demo, compared to her averages for the first three months of the year.

She averaged 3,099,000 total viewers and 685,000 in the 25-54 demo. The numbers included a bump in viewership for Friday’s coverage of the airstrikes on Syria, which also improved ratings for her competition at MSNBC and CNN. Ingraham beat both networks in total viewers and the demo last week.

So despite the boycott, she retains her position as #1 in her time slot and gained 20% in viewership. While she has lost a lot of advertisers, I suspect that will change in time. For instance, Ace Hardware reversed its decision and has decided to continue advertising on Ingraham’s show. And Fox News is not hurt financially because the advertisers who left Ingraham kept their same ad buy budget at Fox. All they did was move the ads to different shows…talk about cheap grace!

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