Mediaite’s Most Influential in News Media 2024
5. Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity’s spot near the top of this list is likely to be cast in stone for the foreseeable future due to two factors: his seemingly permanent prime time perch on ratings juggernaut Fox News and his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump.
Hannity has managed to mostly avoid the missteps that have plagued other former and current Fox colleagues. Despite his steadfast support for Trump, he hasn’t indulged in the rampant 2020 election denialism pervasive in conservative media, and his star has only risen in the wake of Tucker Carlson’s defenestration. Across the industry, Hannity is seen as an enduring and wildly talented broadcasting legend. Even former CNN host Don Lemon, certainly no Fox News fan, has publicly praised Hannity as a “star” for his ability to “move the right” and get “a lot of people” to tune in to see what he has to say.
And millions do tune in, for the scoops and multiple exclusive interviews and town halls Hannity can land. Whenever the 45th and 47th president wanted to get his story out this year, it was often his pal Sean he tapped as the messenger.
Fox News ended the year by extending its winning streak with a consecutive ninth year at number one in the ratings, but it’s in prime time where the network truly dominates. In one week after the election, Fox prime time lineup captured a staggering 72% of the cable news audience. Hannity, as usual, notched a commanding win in the 9 p.m. hour overall, putting up more than 3 million viewers overall in the run up to the election and nearly half a million in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demo. It’s not just the Fox News show, either. Hannity reaches millions on his hit radio show, which is syndicated on 750 stations and occupies a vast stretch of the day for audiences who can’t get enough of the political commentator (Hannity is on the air for a minimum of four hours a day).
Trump’s re-election has the Fox execs bullish on ratings for 2025 and the on-air personalities at the Rupert Murdoch-owned network poised to make history once again. Hannity lauded Trump’s win and was able to indulge in a round of “I told you so” after confidently predicting Trump would get to join Grover Cleveland as the only U.S. presidents in history to serve nonconsecutive terms.
The election, Hannity declared on the evening of Nov. 5, wasn’t just Trump’s triumph over Harris, but also the death of the “legacy media.” As far as Hannity’s own legacy goes, he seems likely to remain snug and cozy at Fox, as the host of Hannity and a new longform interview Fox Nation program called Sean that was announced earlier this month and seems set to emulate the success of The Joe Rogan Experience. Through it all, Hannity has established himself as not just one of the most influential people in media, but one of the most influential in America, period.
4. Charlamagne tha God
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“The yin and yang of life is ratchetness and righteousness,” Charlamagne tha God told The New York Times this year. It’s his own iteration of Tina Brown’s high-low ethos, tailored for the internet age. That approach to news and commentary has vaulted Charlamagne, the longtime host of The Breakfast Club, to the top of the media industry.
It’s been nearly a decade since New York magazine crowned Charlamagne “hip-hop’s puckish Howard Stern.” In 2024, he achieved new heights of his power as an omnipresent cultural and political commentator. During the lightning fast race between Harris and Trump in the 2024 election, few if any supporters of the Democratic ticket wielded as much influence as Charlamagne, whose every utterance landed with a splash covered across the news industry. It was a double-edged sword: Charlamagne’s frank criticism of Harris’s 2019 comments about trans surgeries ended up being featured in perhaps the most consequential ad of the election cycle: Trump’s famed “Kamala Harris is for they/them, Donald Trump is for us” spot.
Yet the fact that Charlamagne doesn’t bite his tongue, even when it comes to a candidate he supports, is the very reason for his longevity in an increasingly competitive market. Despite his newfound stature as a political commentator, Charlamagne remains just as forthright as he ever was – he’s still the radio host who told Kanye to his face in 2013 that his latest album was “wack.” The stubborn insistence on calling balls and strikes is what makes Charlamagne stand apart from many in the industry. “I don’t think you can ever be too tough with an elected official,” Charlamagne said this year, offering advice some others on this list would be wise to consider.
The Radio Hall of Famer, who co-hosts not just The Breakfast Club (reaching a staggering 8 million people) but also the popular Brilliant Idiots podcast, was everywhere this year. He appeared regularly on cable news and sat for thoughtful sit-downs with The New Yorker’s David Remnick and the hosts of The View. He published his third best-selling book. His high-profile town hall with Harris was seen as such a buzzy event that MSNBC and CNN simulcast the audio-only interview. That two cable networks would hand over their airwaves to an extended audio interview is a testament to Charlamagne’s arrival. In the internet era, where platforms like YouTube are powered by a bottomless pit of punditry, few voices consistently cut through the noise. Charlamagne tha God is one of them.
3. Suzanne Scott
Around the same time last year that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott was ranked 9th on Mediaite’s 2023 Most Influential in Media list, she was also selected for the Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. In the year that followed, Fox News has remained the undisputed viewership leader among cable news channels in the United States, as well as cultural and political force, and Scott is on both lists once more.
Beyond the domination of Fox’s linear product, Scott has expanded the company’s footprint into a galaxy of conservative media products. Fox Nation has seen a stunning year, with big names like Martin Scorsese and Kevin Costner among its creators. Fox Weather is growing online and on linear. Fox News Books, the network’s new publishing imprint, churned out bestsellers. And the flagship, Fox News, which continues to dominate cable, also saw its website nip at the heels of juggernaut CNN.com, once surpassing it in daily uniques for the first time earlier this year.
And not that there weren’t challenges. Trump’s love-hate relationship with his favorite and friendliest outlet, which includes him occasionally attacking Scott on his Truth Social app, has become its own cottage news cycle for other press outlets, which continue to report on, snark about, and watch the ratings leader. But Scott, who has been at the helm for six and a half years as only the second CEO in the network’s history, continues to weather every storm — and there have been many for Fox News.
This election year, Scott’s network worked hard to land a presidential debate between Trump and Harris that ultimately never materialized — although one had been agreed to by Biden before he dropped out. That denied opportunity came at the hand of Trump, a somewhat surprising turn of events for the channel that is seen by much of the industry as a mouthpiece for the president-elect. Still, the network pulled off an unparalleled feat pre-election: hosting both candidates and their running mates on the air in one week. Yet as the company puts last year’s Dominion-delivered black eye in its rear-view, and in the face of opposition from some Democrats and other media (and perhaps to some extent, because of it), the channel was a singular force in election coverage. It’s a viewership juggernaut that continues through the presidential transition.
Every media outlet, every company, faces hurdles big and small. And the weather is far stormier for CNN and MSNBC, which have each had their share of controversies and setbacks. Indeed, the post-election ratings at those two outlets are a flashing red siren for their 2025. Fox’s next few years look as bright as ever, as they enter into the new Trump era on the back of a ninth consecutive year at the top of the ratings heap by a mile.
Scott’s continued leadership through both the highs and lows at one of the most powerful media institutions in the world, as she heads toward seven years in the role, remains a testament to her own personal influence, savvy, and expertise.
2. Joe Rogan
In a race dubbed “the podcast election,” it should come as no surprise that the king of the format played a role unlike any other in the news media. Indeed, Joe Rogan’s 2024 has been nothing short of colossal.
The year began with a $250 million contract renewal from Spotify, making him the highest-paid personality in the entire industry. Somehow, it’s a good deal for Spotify too, as it means the service holds onto The Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in America with millions of daily listeners, as their flagship show. The company’s shares ticked up after the deal was announced and have more than doubled since. Rogan pulled off a major move as part of the new deal: he lifted his exclusivity clause to revive his reach on YouTube.
This expansion positioned his show as the ultimate stop for election hopefuls eager to connect with his millions-strong audience, 81% of whom are male and 56% under 35. In his biggest episode of the year, Rogan’s two-hour interview with Trump just before Election Day pulled in a record-breaking 26 million views within 24 hours, surpassing the ratings for game 1 of the World Series that weekend. It would soon cross the 50 million mark on YouTube alone. Talks with Harris fell apart when he refused her campaign’s terms (a one hour interview done remotely). Rogan insisted she visit his studio in Austin for the kind of full-length discussion that his show helped establish as the preeminent format.
The back-and-forth underscored Rogan’s rare clout — when we’re talking tens of millions, the one who has the audience sets the terms. His ultimate endorsement of Trump on the eve of the election may not have come as a surprise but it landed with seismic implications – not just for the legion of fans he pushed towards the Republican candidate, but for the influence of new media, which for the first time in modern American history rammed traditional media out of the driver’s seat.
Another way to think about the immense influence of Rogan is to look at a few other names on this list: Theo Von, Andrew Schulz, Patrick Bet David. All rocketed to stardom thanks to appearances on Rogan, building multi-million dollar media companies in the process. Independent voices dominated 2024. In that world, Rogan remains king.
1. Elon Musk
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Even before his purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk had a knack for not just getting his name in headlines, but for driving the news cycles. Since re-making the platform in his own image and allying himself with Trump, he’s been driving with a bulldozer.
In the process, the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO firmly established himself as the single most powerful person in all of media this year.
X, The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, might have lost millions of users and advertisers’ dollars under Musk’s stewardship, but its impact isn’t measured by numbers alone. The combination of reversing the suspension of radical troll accounts, promoting tweets posted by paid subscribers to the top of replies, and his reported demands that the algorithm be tweaked to amplify Musk’s own tweets have all combined to shift X into a fermentation still for MAGA moonshine.
The result is a media ecosystem where pro-Trump opinion is a far more mainstream part of the national consciousness than it ever was.
Frequently, an unfounded claim or conspiracy theory will pop up in a tweet and then get a boost after Musk likes, shares, or replies to the tweet. That is often enough for certain elected officials, right-wing media, and MAGA influencers to run with it, giving it a veneer of credibility since it’s now coming from a congressman or established conservative media outlet instead of @MAGAPatriot1776Mom and her 31 followers. If the story falls apart, it’s no bother to Musk, who might occasionally delete a tweet but virtually never admits to being wrong.
Even if Musk himself isn’t pushing a tweet, the algorithms he helped create promote a galaxy of pro-Trump voices to users across the platform, and the payment structure for verified subscribers incentivizes them to post and share edgier content. Liberal users may be emigrating to alternative platforms like Threads and Bluesky, but that doesn’t change the reality that the world’s richest man is continuing to drive a significant part of our national political discourse.
It’s Musk’s decision to ally himself with Trump that really cements his position at the summit of this list. Despite vowing to stay neutral in the election and refusing to donate to “either candidate” earlier this year, Musk declared his support for Trump shortly after the assassination attempt in Butler.
That endorsement, arguably more than anything, can be credited with swaying a close election. Not only did Musk put his thumb on the lever to push pro-Trump content on X, he also dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the race. How long the camaraderie between the two notoriously stubborn billionaires will last is anyone’s guess, but thus far, Musk’s bet on Trump has paid off. The victorious president-elect sang Musk’s praises in his victory speech on Election Night, calling him a “super genius” and “star.” Tesla stock has nearly doubled since the election. Musk, already the richest man in the world, has seen his net worth soar more than $170 billion in a few weeks.
Trump also tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (with a crypto-inspired acronym of “DOGE”) that is intended to combat government fraud and waste. Regardless of whether it manages to identify achievable cuts in the gargantuan federal budget, Musk’s role there will give him yet another launchpad to spread his messaging and exert influence on both elected officials and American voters.
The end result is that Musk is poised to become the most powerful civilian in American history – if he isn’t already – and augment his already vast fortune in the process.
A key issue to watch in the coming years will be Musk’s influence over Trump on free speech issues. Despite his claims of being a “free speech warrior,” Musk has been all too quick to censor critics from his platform and to direct misery and harassment at adversaries merely by writing posts about them to send swarms of trollish followers their way.
Musk’s willingness to further ingratiate himself to Trump may very well reveal itself in the way he acts as Trump’s informal enforcer, writing or promoting posts about those who dare to defy the 47th president — including the press, which Musk has battered relentlessly in the hopes of convincing Americans they should trust information on X over traditional media outlets.
Musk has declared with increasing frequency that the mainstream media is dead and his platform X is the media now. Now, he’s devoting his vast powers to making that dream a reality. When the richest man in the world teams up with the president of the United States of America, it’s more likely than ever that he’ll succeed.