The plan was simple. Rather than spend money on a Madison Ave ad campaign, MoveOn would simply appeal to their many members. Certainly there were a few that would be able to come up with quality 30 second issue ads for them to air. And indeed there were. Quite a few, in fact. The winning ad was "Child's Pay" [about 4Megs, and you need QuickTime], and the plan was to run it during the Super Bowl. Oops!
It seems that CBS, owned by media giant Viacom and the network airing the Super Bowl, has declined MoveOn's request to air that ad during the Super Bowl. A single 30-second ad on the Super Bowl costs a record $2.25 million, but CBS doesn't want it? [Advertisers already signed up include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Philip Morris, the tobacco giant. Several Hollywood studios have also pre-booked slots to promote forthcoming movies. The British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is using the event to launch Levitra, a rival to anti-impotence drug Viagra. Sex is OK for the Super Bowl, but issues are not.]
In announcing their decision however, CBS went much further; they will never air any MoveOn ad due to their "longstanding policy of not airing issue ads". Oh, really? The anti-national healthcare "issue ads" you ran back in 1993? Come on, CBS. Get real. You are bowing down before the threat of Karl Rove's punishment. After all, you are the network that caved about playing the Reagan docu-drama, aren't you?
Of course, this is just the beginning. Watch for NBC (owned by GE), ABC (owned by Disney), and naturally (the Rupert Murdoch-owned) FOX to quickly fall in line. In other words, MoveOn has $7.5 million to spend on ads, and none of the networks want it. Suddenly, all of these networks have found some "higher morality" as they devote their coverage to helicopters following Michael Jackson's limosine.
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