Breitbart site losing most of its advertisers
The number of advertisers on the alt-right site Breitbart.com has dropped 90 percent in recent months, from 242 in March to 26 in May, according to data from MediaRadar, a New York firm that tracks online advertising.
Among the businesses that continue to advertise on the site include a gentleman’s club in Northern Virginia, a golf resort near the coast of Spain and the conservative foundation Judicial Watch.
“Liberal activists want to destroy Breitbart, but we won’t be cowed,” the foundation’s president Tom Fitton said in an interview. “We advertise widely on the internet, and we’re proud of the relationship and the partnerships we have .”
Fitton said Judicial Watch had been advertising on Breitbart for years but would not elaborate on the company’s strategy or where else it places ads.
“I’ m not talking about the details of our internal decision-making with the anti-Trump Washington Post,” hesaid.
Breitbart News, founded 10 years ago to be “unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel,” catapulted to fame in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. The site, which has published stories with racist, sexist and misogynistic views, has become a gathering ground for conservative supporters of President Trump. (Breitbart’s former chairman, Stephen Bannon, is now Trump’s chief strategist.) On Thursday, headlines on its homepage included “D.C. swamp goes crazy for James Comey hearing” and “58 scientific papers declare global warming a‘ myth .’”
Among the advertisers still on the site are Paper Moon Gentle men’ s Club, Big Viral Stories( an anti-Hillary Clinton magazine), Instant Background Checks, America’ s Economic Expressway and Revolution Golf, according to Media Radar.
More than 2,200 companies, including Audi, Harris Teeter, Ethan Allen and Lyft, have asked thirdparty vendors to pull advertising from the site in recent months, according to Sleeping Giants, an anonymous activist group that is tracking online data. (Amazon.com, however, continues to place ads on the site. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns the Washington Post.)
Representatives from Breitbart did not immediatelyrespond to requests for comment.
“This is a good example of how advertisers have been suddenly shoved into the polarized political landscape,” said David Carroll, a professor of media design at the New School in New York. “It’s a post-election reality the industry was not preparedfor.”
MediaRadar estimates that the mix of brands willing to advertise on Breitbart has dwindled in recent months. During the first three months of the year, the site hosted 20 categories — including media and entertainment (accounting for 22 percent of total advertisers), retail (21 percent) and (14 percent ).
By April, however, advertising had become “almost entirely conservative,” the firm said, offering examples such as The Right To Bear. com and American Patriot Daily.
“Breitbart’s advertising has collapsed,” said Todd Krizelman, co-founder and chief executive of MediaRadar. “Most political sites are making less money today than they did a year ago because of the election cycle. But they’re not down 90 percent, I can guarantee that.”
But it may be immaterial, said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York.
“If Breitbart lost every single penny of advertising tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t matter,” Jarvis said, adding that the site is backed by billionaire Roger Mercer .“Quite the would probably be a badge of honor.”