Sean Hannity lost half his TV audience after the election

Being wrong has consequences

Published December 31, 2012 11:12PM (EST)

Conservative mouthpiece Sean Hannity lost about half of his TV audience in the weeks after the election while his colleague Bill O'Reilly's viewership only dropped by about a third, the Daily News reported:

The Daily News:

So what happened to Hannity?

The going wisdom is that viewers who basked in his preelection anti-Obama rhetoric tuned him out when they were stunned to wake up on Nov. 7 and discover that the President had won a second term — a scenario that Hannity had all but promised could never happen.

Before the election, Hannity was riding high in the ratings and topped thought leaders on the right, like Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan and talk radio bulldog Mark Levin, who predicted Obama would lose in a landslide.

Hannity performed even worse in the "money-demo" of viewers aged 25-54. More than half of them deserted his show.


By Alex Halperin

Alex Halperin is news editor at Salon. You can follow him on Twitter @alexhalperin.

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Bill O'reilly Conservatism Fox News Media Repuiblicans Sean Hannity