Report: Hannity Gives Trump $33 Million Worth of Free Air Time

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has spent very little money on advertising and this is probably one reason why.

Analysis conducted by Media Matters found that Fox News host Sean Hannity alone has provided Trump at least $33 million in free advertising.

Hannity has devoted just over 22 hours of airtime to broadcasting interviews with Trump since the launch of Trump’s campaign. That airtime is worth more than $31 million according to advertising value calculated by media monitoring service iQ Media. That coverage includes 51 original interviews and over a dozen re-airings of previously aired interviews. This year alone, Hannity has aired thirteen and a half hours of Trump interviews, four and a half hours of which have come since Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the Republican primary in early May, effectively ending the race.

This obviously doesn't include air time offered to Trump by the rest of Fox News or the other networks.

This may allow Trump to keep more of his campaign funds for himself, but it doesn't necessarily do him a big electoral favor. Appearing on Sean Hannity's show is preaching to the choir and will not allow him to reach the audience he needs to reach to win the election. This is effectively the same thing as Trump holding campaign events in deep red states two months away from the election.

Trump isn't building an electoral coalition, he's building an audience for his future TV network.