[StBernard] Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertisers

[Westley Annis]

Below is an article about Glenn Beck's comment on calling Obama a racist.
An organization called ColorofChange.org has since pushed advertisers to
boycott Beck's tv and radio programs.  ColorofChange.org is itself an
extremely pro-black racist organization founded by Van Jones, who now works
as an Obama administrator and now led by James Rucker, who is no better.
Their call for a boycott of Beck is truly an example of "the pot calling the
kettle black."  Personally, Glenn Beck should be given a medal for being the
first media personality to have the gutts to be the "little boy who pointed
out the emporer was naked."


Also, James Rucker is even a bigger idiot than I previously thought if he
thinks these companies are going to stay away from Beck for more than a week
or two.  "Ratings" is the ultimate God for advertisers and Beck gets over 15
million different people each week between radio and tv - advertisers can't
afford to go elsewhere.  What's funny - and this article fails to mention -
is these advertisers are literally fighting one another for the ad slot that
leads into Beck's show and immediatley following it - claiming it's
technically associated with the programs the preceed and follow Beck's
show....yeah, right!  Just goes to show they "really" don't want to leave
Beck's ratings - and within a couple of weeks will be right back in the
middle of this airtime.


John


 


Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertisers


Published: 8/23/09, 1:48 PM EDT
By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) - Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel after a vacation on
Monday with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he
left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist. 

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and
Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to
the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action
among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him.
That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago. 

While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and
Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares
within the most opinionated cable TV shows. 

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to
be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or
conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners
said in a statement that is has decided not to advertise on political talk
shows. The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a
"safe" environment for their messages. The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys,
Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will
anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors. 

They also host the most-watched programs on their networks. 

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran,
spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on
Fox News Channel as a whole. 

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political
temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation,
averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.


He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a
racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately
distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio
show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for
this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said. 

ColorofChange.org quickly targeted companies whose ads had appeared during
Beck's show, telling them what he had said and seeking a commitment to drop
him. The goal is to make Beck a liability, said James Rucker, the
organization's executive director. 

"They have a toxic asset," Rucker said. "They can either clean it up or get
rid of it." 

It's not immediately clear how many of the companies actually knew they were
advertising on Beck's show. Sometimes commercial time is chosen for a
specific show, but often it is bought on a rotation basis, meaning the
network sprinkles the ads throughout the day on its own schedule. Sometimes
ads appear by mistake; Best Buy said it bought commercial time for earlier
in the day, and one of its ads unexpectedly appeared in Beck's show. 

One company, CVS Caremark, said it advertises on Fox but hadn't said
anything about Beck. Now it has told its advertising agency to inform Fox
that it wanted no commercials on Beck. 

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect
millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and
respectful," said spokeswoman Carolyn Castel. 

Besides the unpredictability of the opinionated cable hosts, the rapid pace
of today's wired world complicates decisions on where to place ads, said
Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Sprint. She said she was surprised at
how fast the Beck issue spread across social media outlets and how quickly
advertiser names were attached to it. 

UPS' Hallabran said the decision to pull commercials "should not be
interpreted as we are permanently withdrawing our advertising from Fox." He
said the company wants to reach viewers with a wide spectrum of opinions. 

Except for UPS Stores, there's no evidence that any advertisers who say they
don't want to be on Beck's show are leaving Fox. Network spokeswoman Irena
Briganti said the companies have simply requested the ads be moved elsewhere
and that Fox hasn't lost any revenue. 

She wouldn't say whether Fox was benefiting from any anti-anti-Beck
backlash, with companies looking to support him. Some Beck supporters have
urged fans to express their displeasure at companies for abandoning their
man. 

Beck supporters have suggested that retaliation might have something to do
with ColorofChange.org's campaign. One of the group's founders, Van Jones,
now works in the Obama administration and has been criticized by Beck. But
Rucker said Jones has nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't
even know about the campaign before it started. 

Beck's strong ratings - even at 5 p.m. EDT he often outdraws whatever CNN
and MSNBC show in prime-time - make it unlikely Beck is going anywhere even
with the list of advertisers avoiding him approaches three dozen. 

But it could mean advertising time becomes cheaper on his show than such a
large audience would normally command. Some of his show's advertisers last
week included a male enhancement pill, a law firm looking to sue on behalf
of asbestos victims, a company selling medical supplies to diabetics and a
water filter company. 

Rucker said ColorofChange.org has contacted about 60 companies regarding
Beck, and is heartened by the response. 

"It's causing a certain conversation around Beck, which I think is
important," he said.