Early life

Sean Patrick Hannity was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lillian (Flynn) and Hugh Hannity. All of his grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland. He has two sisters. He grew up in Franklin Square, New York, and attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Hempstead, New York, during his middle school years and St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary high school in Uniondale, New York. Hannity dropped out of New York University and Adelphi University.

Career

Hannity hosted his first talk radio show in 1989 at the volunteer college station at UC Santa Barbara, KCSB-FM, while working as a general contractor. The show aired for 40 hours of air time; Regarding his first show, Hannity has said, "I wasn't good at it. I was terrible." Hannity's weekly show on KCSB was canceled after less than a year by station managers. This was after two shows featuring the book The AIDS Coverup: The Real and Alarming Facts about AIDS by Gene Antonio; among other remarks made during the broadcast, Hannity told a lesbian caller "I feel sorry for your child." The station later reversed its decision to dismiss Hannity due in part to a campaign conducted by the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Hannity decided against returning to KCSB.

After leaving KCSB, Hannity placed an ad in radio publications presenting himself as "the most talked about college radio host in America." Radio station WVNN in Athens, Alabama (part of the Huntsville market) then hired him to be the afternoon talk show host. From Huntsville, he moved to WGST in Atlanta in 1992, filling the slot vacated by Neal Boortz, who had moved to competing station WSB. In September 1996 Fox News co-founder Roger Ailes hired the then relatively unknown Hannity to host a television program under the working title Hannity and LTBD ("liberal to be determined"). Alan Colmes was then hired to co-host and the show debuted as Hannity & Colmes.

Later that year Hannity left WGST for New York, where WABC had him substitute for their afternoon drive time host during Christmas week. In January 1997, WABC put Hannity on the air full-time, giving him the late night time slot. WABC then moved Hannity to the same drive time slot he had filled temporarily a little more than a year earlier. Hannity was on WABC's afternoon time slot from January 1998 until the end of 2013. Since January 2014, Hannity has hosted the 3-6 pm time slot on WOR in New York City.

Conservative Cal Thomas and liberal Bob Beckel, in their book Common Ground, describe Hannity as a leader of the pack among broadcasting political polarizers, which following James Q. Wilson they define as those who have "an intense commitment to a candidate, a culture, or an ideology that sets people in one group definitively apart from people in another, rival group."

Television

See also: Hannity & Colmes, Hannity's America, and Hannity

Hannity was a co-host of Hannity & Colmes, an American political "point-counterpoint"-style television program on the Fox News Channel featuring Hannity and Alan Colmes as co-hosts. Hannity presented the conservative point of view with Colmes providing the liberal viewpoint. Critics argued that the show highlighted Hannity's views and those of conservative guests over Colmes' and those of liberal guests.

Hannity had on air clashes with show guests such as Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer of Human Life International, who challenged Hannity on his public dissent from the Catholic Church on the issue of contraception. Hannity stated that if the Catholic Church were to excommunicate him over the issue, he would join Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church.

In January 2007, Hannity began a new Sunday night television show on Fox News, Hannity's America.

In November 2008, Colmes announced his departure from Hannity & Colmes. After the show's final broadcast on January 9, 2009, Hannity took over the time slot with his own new show, Hannity, which has a format similar to Hannity's America.

Radio

Hannity's radio program is a conservative political talk show that features Hannity's opinions and ideology related to current issues and politicians. The Sean Hannity Show began national syndication on September 10, 2001, on over 500 stations nationwide. In 2004, Hannity signed a $25 million five-year contract extension with ABC Radio (now Citadel Media) to continue the show until 2009. The program was made available via Armed Forces Radio Network in 2006. In June 2007, ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Communications and in the summer of 2008, Hannity was signed for a $100 million five-year contract. As of October 2013, the program is heard by over 13.25 million listeners a week. Hannity is currently ranked No. 2 in Talker Magazine's Top 100 Talk Host in America and was listed as No. 72 on Forbes' "Celebrity 100" list in 2013.

In January 2007, Clear Channel Communications signed a groupwide three-year extension with Hannity on over 80 stations. The largest stations in the group deal included KTRH Houston, KFYI Phoenix, WPGB Pittsburgh, WKRC Cincinnati, WOOD Grand Rapids, WFLA Tampa, WOAI San Antonio, WLAC Nashville, and WREC Memphis.

The opening theme music for the Sean Hannity Show was formerly "Independence Day" by Martina McBride followed by "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. The writer of McBride's song, Gretchen Peters, has stated publicly in interview that the song is about domestic abuse, not political values; though she cannot stop Hannity from using the song, she disagrees with its use and uses the royalties he pays to donate to her own causes. As of May 2014 the theme song was changed to the line "This is how we roll" from the song of the same name by Florida Georgia Line.

Hannity signed a long-term contract to remain with Premiere Networks in September 2013.

At the beginning of 2014 Hannity signed contracts to air on several Salem Communications stations including WDTK Detroit, WIND Chicago, WWRC Washington, D.C., and KSKY Dallas.

Books

Hannity is the author of three books. The first two, Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism and Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism, were published through ReganBooks. Both of these books reached the nonfiction New York Times bestseller list, the second of which stayed there for five weeks. Hannity has stated that he is too busy to write many books, and dictated a lot of his own two books into a tape recorder while driving in to do his radio show.

Hannity wrote his third book, Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda, which was released by HarperCollins on March 30, 2010. The book became Hannity's third New York Times Bestseller.

Freedom Concerts

Since 2003, Hannity has hosted country music-themed "Freedom Concerts" to raise money for charity. According to WHIO, more than $9 million has been raised by the concerts and by WHIO listeners as of 2009.

Personal life

In 2015, Forbes estimated that Hannity's annual income was $29 million.

Hannity has been married to Jill Hannity (née Rhodes) since 1993. They have two children, Sean Patrick and Merri Kelly.

While discussing gun control during a Fox News interview with Piers Morgan on October 6, 2014, Hannity said that he has carried a weapon "more than half my adult life".

Awards and honors

• Hannity received a Marconi Award in 2003 and 2007 as the Network Syndicated Personality of the Year from the National Association of Broadcasters.
• In 2009, Talkers Magazine listed Hannity as #2 on their list of the 100 most important radio talk show hosts in America. The same magazine gave Hannity their Freedom of Speech Award in 2003.
• In 2005, Jerry Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University, awarded Hannity an honorary degree.
• Radio and Records magazine has honored Hannity with the National Talk Show Host of the Year Award for three consecutive years.

Bibliography

• Hannity, Sean (2002). Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism, ReganBooks, ISBN 0-06-051455-8.
• Hannity, Sean (2004). Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism, ReganBooks, ISBN 0-06-058251-0.
• Hannity, Sean (2010). Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda, Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 0-06-200305-4.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]