My Pillow Friend Mike Lindell is pulling advertisements from Fox News.
Who will suffer the most sleep loss as a result of this separation?
Mike Lindell, a pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist, has announced that he is pulling his advertisements from Fox News, where he has been a big spender and a frequent guest. Lindell’s beef with Fox, he tells the Wall Street Journal, stems from Fox’s alleged refusal to run an advertisement for an August streaming event at which Lindell is expected to continue pushing baseless claims of 2020 presidential election fraud.
“Shame on you, Fox News!” the My Pillow Guy, as the pitchman is known, wrote on Facebook.
While Fox News is not unfamiliar with spreading misinformation, the conservative news organization — along with Lindell — was hit with a massive lawsuit in March by Dominion Voting Systems. The election systems company claims its reputation has been tarnished by allegations that its equipment contributed to Trump’s defeat in November. Dominion has asked Fox for $1.6 billion and Lindell for $1.3 billion. Both parties, which have had cordial relations with the 45th President, intend to contest the lawsuit.
Lindell believes that Trump will be reinstated as president by the Supreme Court within the next month or so. Lindell claims to have spent approximately $19 million on advertising on Fox News in 2021.
Media Matters, a watchdog group that monitors outlets such as Fox News, reported Friday that My Pillow accounted for 18 percent of all advertisements on Fox News’ highly rated and highly contentious “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in the first half of 2021.
On Thursday, Media Matters compiled a video of Fox News hosts — particularly Carlson — gushing over their cash cow.
“I’m always curious about how your bed looks at home,” Carlson groveled in one of those snippets.
According to Media Matters, My Pillow is Fox News’ single largest advertiser overall.
Fox News expressed regret that Mr. Lindell chose to pause his commercial time in a statement to CNN, noting that Fox remains the “number one (watched) cable news network.”
According to CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, Lindell, who also advertises with right-wing publications Newsmax and OAN, needs Fox as much as Fox needs him. This week, Fox News took aim at Stelter with an article about his “Reliable Sources” program’s ratings struggles with key demographics for advertisers.
