Supporters of conservative TV host Laura Ingraham are calling for a boycott of advertisers who have dropped her show.
Eleven companies so far have withdrawn their ads from Ingraham’s Fox News program after she feuded with a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting over Twitter. The Atlantis, Paradise Island resort; Office Depot, Jenny Craig, Hulu, Nutrish, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Wayfair, StitchFix, Nestlé and Johnson & Johnson said they would pull ads from the show.
Ingraham on Wednesday posted a mocking tweet of high school senior David Hogg, taunting him for not getting into some colleges he had applied to. In response, Hogg tweeted a list of advertisers on Ingraham’s show and called on followers to contact them.
Nutrish was the first to say it would stop advertising on Ingraham’s program, and other brands followed.
Ingraham apologized in a tweet the following day, citing “the spirit of Holy Week,” and invited Hogg to appear on her show.
Hogg dismissed her statement. “She only apologized after we went after her advertisers,” he told the New York Times. Ingraham has stayed silent since her tweet on Thursday.
Ingraham fans took to social media to call for boycotts of the companies that moved to pull their ads, launching the hashtag #IStandWithLaura. One user posted that he was systematically removing his reviews from TripAdvisor.
“The Ingraham Angle,” which airs daily at 10 p.m. Eastern time, was the no. 4 cable show on TV last month, according to AdWeek, both in terms of total viewers and viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic, a coveted age group for cable news advertisers. According to AdAge, it’s on track to be the second-most viewed show in its time slot, in which it competes with MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”
Fox News, which has not offered a statement, has faced a number of ad boycotts in recent years. After Sean Hannity supported Alabama judge Roy Moore in his campaign for the U.S. senate, five companies removed their ads, including Keurig. Hannity fans then launched a boycott of Keurig posting videos of themselves destroying their coffee makers on social media. The company’s CEO later apologized. And former host Bill O’Reilly lost dozens of advertisers for his show after the New York Times reported that he and Fox News had agreed to a series of secret settlements over harassment allegations.
It’s unclear how much of an impact the advertiser exodus will have on Ingraham’s program. The 11 who have left are a small portion of the 129 companies that have run ads on her program in the last 10 days, reports Media Matters, a left-leaning media activist group. On Thursday night, Ingraham’s show ran a “filler” ad, indicating it could be having trouble selling.
Following are the companies that have distanced themselves from Ingraham’s program as of Friday afternoon.
Atlantis, Paradise Island
The Bahamas resort told The Hill on Friday it “decided to remove all brand advertising tied to the program.”
“Although we are an organization that believes in freedom of expression, we do not condone discrimination, bullying, mockery or harmful behavior of any kind,” the company told The Hill in a statement.
Jenny Craig
The weight-loss company told HuffPost on Friday, “We have decided to take steps to discontinue advertising on this show.”
Nutrish
“We are in the process of removing our ads from Laura Ingraham’s program,” the pet food company tweeted Thursday morning.
Hulu
The streaming service, which has 17 million subscribers, tweeted its decision Thursday night.
“We’d like to confirm that we are no longer advertising on Laura Ingraham’s show and are monitoring all of our ad placements carefully,” the company said.
TripAdvisor
“TripAdvisor believes strongly in the values of our company, especially the one that says, ‘We are better together,'” a company spokesperson said in a statement sent to CBS News.
“We also believe Americans can disagree while still being agreeable, and that the free exchange of ideas within a community, in a peaceful manner, is the cornerstone of our democracy,” it said.
“We do not, however, condone the inappropriate comments made by this broadcaster. In our view, these statements focused on a high school student, cross the line of decency,” the statement added.
Wayfair
The online home-goods retailer told HuffPost, “The decision of an adult to personally criticize a high school student who has lost his classmates in an unspeakable tragedy is not consistent with our values. We do not plan to continue advertising on this particular program.”
Stitch Fix
Stitch Fix, the clothing subscription company, tweeted: “We did not make the decision to drop our ads from The Ingraham Angle lightly, but believe it was the right thing to do after statements from the host crossed the line of decency.”
Expedia
“We have pulled the advertising,” the travel site told CNBC.
Nestlé
The food conglomerate told HuffPost, “We have no plans to buy ads on the show in the future.”
Johnson & Johnson
The personal goods giant told HuffPost it “will pull advertising from Ms. Ingraham’s show.”
Office Depot
Office Depot has pulled their ads from the show, The Daily Beast reported.
