“There are so many options you don’t feel you’re in a sink-or-swim situation by removing dollars from one program and putting them on another,” Drinkwater said.Īdvertisers fled Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham’s show in late March after she delivered a tweet taunting Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor David Hogg over his college application rejections. They are typically able to accommodate advertisers who want to move their dollars out of a show, rather than risk being subjected to the ire of activists and special interest groups. ABC is in talks about a “Roseanne” spinoff without its star, but it would not be expected to draw the ratings of the original. A prolonged controversy over the fate of “Roseanne,” its most-watched program, could have stalled deal-making at a crucial time.įew shows could deliver a larger audience - the series averaged about 22 million viewers last spring. The tweet by Barr, who had already caused a stir by spreading right-wing conspiracy theories online, surfaced just as Disney ABC was ready to negotiate with advertisers on the sale of $2 billion in advance ad time for the company’s 2018-19 program slate. Commercial time per half-hour episode has fallen to 1¾ minutes, down from 6½ minutes before the miscue, according to Kantar Media.īut in the case of Barr, who posted a racist tweet in which she compared former President Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to an ape, ABC acted fast before a protest could take hold and cause real financial damage. TBS declined to comment, but people familiar with the advertising situation at “Full Frontal” said they expect advertisers to gradually return. In most cases, networks will ride out controversies and boycott calls, as political hosts and comedians are hired to be provocative and advertisers’ skittishness comes with the territory. Sponsor support disappeared and O’Reilly was fired in April 2017, though Fox News advertisers returned to the time period after Tucker Carlson took over. Last year, Media Matters lobbied advertisers to drop former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly after reports that he and the cable network had paid out $13 million to settle sexual harassment claims made against him. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., successfully pressured companies to drop discounts given to National Rifle Assn. They either don’t have confidence or trust in the process, or don’t think what they do will make a bit of difference.”Ĭarusone cited how gun control advocates who could not get their representatives to act after the Feb. “The problem in the current landscape is everybody has thrown up their hands. “If you asked people how to exercise power 10 or 15 years ago, the answer would be call your member of Congress,” he said. “Both sides are looking for every mechanism possible to weaponize any venue for them to inflict pain on the other side.”Īngelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, the liberal watchdog group that has organized protests against right-wing media outlets over the years, said pressuring advertisers is a quick way to deliver a political message in an age when citizens feel they can no longer depend on elected officials to respond to their issues. “We’ve become hyper-partisan in this country,” said David Cadden, professor emeritus of entrepreneurship and strategy at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.
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