Has Bayer reached a breaking point with Fox opinion shows? A Friday report says the pharma and agricultural giant will stop advertising on TV shows hosted by Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson.
The latest reported move, attributed to anonymous sources by Popular Information, comes the day after Ingraham’s interview with President Donald Trump was widely criticized after it held up 75th anniversary D-Day ceremonies at the gravesite of American soldiers in Normandy. Popular Information is run by Judd Legum, a journalist and lawyer who founded the ThinkProgress news website in 2005.
However, it would not be the first time Bayer cut advertising on Ingraham after public outcry over actions by the controversial Fox host.
RELATED: Johnson & Johnson, Bayer drop Fox show advertising after host belittles Parkland student
In March 2018, the pharma giant confirmed through its Twitter account @BayerUS that it “stopped advertising on Laura Ingraham and we have no plans to resume any time in the future.” The company was responding to a call by consumers to boycott the brand after Ingraham belittled David Hogg, a gun control advocate who is also a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor.
Bayer did not respond to requests for comment by FiercePharma on the most recent boycott report. It has not commented publicly—beyond the aforementioned Twitter response last year—to questions about its continued advertising on Fox opinion shows even as other pharma companies dropped the shows.
For instance, Johnson & Johnson dropped Ingraham last year around the same Hogg comments.
RELATED: Tucker Carlson’s off-the-rail insults put pharma advertisers in hot seat
Earlier this year, AstraZeneca confirmed that it had already stopped advertising on Carlson’s show after radio tapes of the host insulting women and others surfaced. Later that same week, in March, Allergan and Novo Nordisk said they would drop Fox hosted Jeanine Pirro after controversy over her comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim.
Going back to April 2017, drugmakers including GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Eli Lilly joined other consumer advertisers in pulling ads from the now canceled “The Bill O’Reilly Show” after allegations of the host’s sexual misconduct surfaced.
