• by Wayne Friedman , November 13, 2017

Fox News Channel’s prime-time program “Hannity” witnessed a 15% decline in national TV advertising for the most recent three-month period -- partly due to the absence of a presidential election, with comparisons to viewer/advertising interest of a year ago.

For the period from September 1 through November 12, “Hannity” pulled in $32.9 million in advertising sales, according to iSpot.tv -- down from $38.9 million for the same time period a year ago. Analysts says this decline was somewhat expected, due to unfavorable comparisons to high TV viewing of the presidential election campaign of last year.

These results come amid some recent advertiser defections related to Sean Hannity’s recent coverage of sexual allegations against Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore. 

A number of advertisers have reportedly pulled out of the show, including Keurig, Nature's Bounty, Cadillac, and E-Trade, among other brands.

In response to Keurig, Hannity has been encouraging and applauding fans who share tweets and social media posts. Some of those post include videos of Keurig coffeemakers being smashed.

Social media measurer Canvs says Sean Hannity is the second-biggest individual driver of “emotional reactions” of TV viewers since the period of September 1 through November 12 -- with 164,301 emotional reactions in total.

According to Canvs, Hannity-related social media content was described as “love” in 17.7% of reactions and “hate” and “dislike” for 23.9% of reactions.

In the third quarter of this year, Fox News Channel was down 12% in total average prime-time viewers to a Nielsen 2.15 million and off 5% in key TV news viewers ages 25-54. Fox News’ top two shows during the third quarter of this year were “Tucker Carlson Tonight," at 2.544 million viewers, and “Hannity,” with 2.512 million.

At the same time, other TV news networks' viewing data has been higher this year. In prime time, for example, MSNBC is up 43% to 1.75 million viewers. In total day viewing, CNN is up 1% to 797,000 total viewers, while MSNBC has gained 41% to 951,000 viewers.  

In addition, while Fox News slipped 3% in total day viewers to 1.4 million total viewers, it was up 8% among 25-54 viewers to 298,000. 

Brands, spots and frequency on “Hannity” are comparable to the results of a year ago. For the three-month period from September to November this year, 321 brands ran 639 spots 3,075 times. A year ago, there were 393 brands running 815 spots 3,709 times