Sean Hannity’s ratings have plummeted after the 2012 election, as the conservative television host saw his audience dwindle after GOP challenger Mitt Romney failed to unseat President Obama.
Hannity saw his audience fall by about 50 percent after the election ended. Though it was not entirely unexpected that Hannity’s ratings would drop after the biggest political event in the last four years, his decline was sharper than other conservative pundits, Salon noted. Bill O’Reilly saw his viewership drop by only about one-third.
Among the important demographic of viewers aged 25-54, Sean Hannity’s ratings were even worse. More than half of what is known as the “money demo” stopped watching.
Many believe that Sean Hannity’s ratings suffered as a result of his failed rhetoric. Throughout the election, he hyped up Mitt Romney’s chances to win the election, seizing on the Republican’s strong performance in the first presidential debate to all but call the election.
From the New York 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.”
As his ratings dropped, Sean Hannity also saw himself the center of attack from the right. Outspoken actor Ed Asner in early December claimed that Hannity was “behind on his rabies medicine.”