As the Republican National Convention rolls on, offering a primetime showcase for misinformation and Dear Leader-like gushing, one TV news star is getting a front row seat to the whole production. Fox News host Sean Hannity, whose nightly support of President Donald Trump borders on sycophantic, told viewers Monday that he’ll be broadcasting live Tuesday “from the Rose Garden in the lead-up for Melania Trump’s speech,” at Fort McHenry on Wednesday for Vice President Mike Pence’s speech, and “live on the South Lawn” for Trump’s address on Thursday. Such special treatment for Hannity rankled rival networks, according to CNN’s Brian Stelter. “No other TV network has an anchor position along the South Lawn,” he wrote, adding that “complaints lodged by other networks did lead to some small improvements in White House access.”
Throughout his presidency Trump’s base has flocked to Fox News for coverage that fawns over the president and skims past his failures, with Hannity emerging as one of the president’s most trusted media advisers—essentially a “shadow chief of staff.” The president and his favorite personalities have been engaged in a years-long feedback loop, with each side amplifying one another, while there’s been a revolving door between the White House and the network. So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that RNC viewers flocked en masse to Fox News.
Although overnight ratings across major broadcast and cable networks showed a decline in viewership from the first night of the 2016 RNC—and fell about 2.7 million short of the first night of the 2020 DNC—nearly half of those tuning in headed to Fox News. More than 7 million of the 15.8 million viewers watched on Fox News, giving the network its highest-rated opening-night convention audience in 24 years. That left major networks like NBC, CBS and ABC, and CNN —who were also airing the convention—fighting over the remaining 8 million or so viewers.
Fox News’s near monopoly of RNC coverage can be attributed to its stable of pro-Trump voices, such as Hannity, whose 9 p.m. show is a go-to destination when the president wants to toss insults at opponents, launch into extended tirades, and air his many grievances. Both men share frustration with the news media. “By the way all those people in the back are fake news,” Hannity said during a 2018 rally with Trump. The Fox host added that “the one thing that has made and defined your presidency more than anything else, promises made, promises kept.” Despite the on-air lovefests, Stelter, in his new book on the synergistic relationship between Fox News and the president, reports that Hannity has told people he thinks Trump is “crazy.’”
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