Advertisers drop Beck over "racist remark"

[Psychic Octopus]

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/article/tv-news.en.ap.org/tv-news.en.ap.org-20090824-us_tv_beck_s_advertisers

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.

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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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Beck did make a racist remark in that interview-or-whatever-it-was, but it's not the same remark that seems to have landed in trouble. Strange world.

[anvi]

Glad to see these advertisers don't support trash talk.  Good for them.

[tik 🪀✨]

Glad to see these advertisers don't support trash talk associating their brand with controversial talk shows.  Good Potential loss prevention for them.

These companies are afraid of their brand being tied with something people may respond negatively to.. it's hardly a "moral" move, it's a money move. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's silly to think that (at least the majority of) businesses are doing anything besides what's in their best monetary interest.

[memphis]

What did he say?

[Rowan]

What did he say?

All he said was that Obama is a racist, with a deep seeded hatred for white people. And now people are blowing it out of proportion.

[Holmes]

It's all an act anyway, except when people say it's really all true.

[Zarn]

Almost makes you want to watch Glenn Beck, doesn't it?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Almost makes you want to watch Glenn Beck, doesn't it?

I get my fill of Beck by watching "The Soup," thanks.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wal-Mart? Why? Liberals are going to hate them anyway.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I missed it.  Personally I think companies overreact to this stuff all the time (whenever liberals or conservatives say something controversial), but then again, I'm not a marketing person, so I don't know that much.

[Stampever]

Is it racist to call a black man "racist?"

[Brittain33]

Is it racist to call a black man "racist?"

I think Glenn Beck's statement as written is racist, yes. Obviously the much, much broader category of statements covered by your question would include inaccurate claims, but I don't think that's relevant.

Republicans sure seemed to have a problem with Kanye West's statement that George W. Bush "doesn't care about black people," and "not caring" is a much milder accusation than "has a deep-seated hatred of..."

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I still find it hysterical Wal-Mart honestly thinks anyone offended shops there.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I still find it hysterical Wal-Mart honestly thinks anyone offended shops there.

In the world of media-stereotype "culture wars" that only involve comparing different types of white people, maybe. In the real world, plenty of Black people shop at Wal-Mart.

[Coburn In 2012]

Glenn Beck is THE GREATEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mechaman]

Wal-Mart? Why? Liberals are going to hate them anyway.

I have a friend who is super socialist who shops at Wal-Mart all the time. Not saying socialists and liberals are the same, but I believe a socialist is probably more left. Then again my friend is a poor who wouldn't starve just to make a statement.

[anvi]

Glad to see these advertisers don't support trash talk associating their brand with controversial talk shows.  Good Potential loss prevention for them.

These companies are afraid of their brand being tied with something people may respond negatively to.. it's hardly a "moral" move, it's a money move. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's silly to think that (at least the majority of) businesses are doing anything besides what's in their best monetary interest.

Of course these companies are protecting their profits by removing their sponsership of Beck's show, and it's in their interest to do so.  But an act can be in someone's self- interest and be moral at the same time, they are not mutually exclusive.  When a controversial talk show, on the right or left, offends the sentiments of the general public, then any company that withdraws its sponsorship is protecting itself precisely by acknowledging the public sentiments. 

"A racist...with a deep seated hatred of white people and white culture."  Right.  Surely the president has a deep-seated hatred of his mother...of his maternal grandparents...of Jerry Kellerman, who first hired him as a community organizer...of many of his cabinet members...of most of his campaign staff...of all the white people who supported and voted for him for each of his political offices....  Yeah, right.

When Beck made this comment, I think he was referring to Obama's remarks about the Gates arrest in Cambridge, when he said that the "police...acted stupidly."  What Beck overlooks, of course, is that calling an act "stupid" is not a racial comment.  Even David Gergen voiced grave concerns over the necessity of arresting a man on his own premises, even if he is shouting; does that make Gergen, by Beck's logic, a racist too?     

I don't think it's necessarily racist to call someone else a racist.  But Beck, Limbaugh and all these other "commentators" take trash talk and turn it into political opposition and pass it off as public discourse.  Beck used those comments to motivate political opposition, specifically in this case the political opposition of white viewers of Fox.  All this bullsh**t, "Obama hates white people, Obama is a Nazi, Obama is a Muslim," ect. ect. ect; it's flagrantly hateful trash talk, and it incites hatred.   

The left does this kind of thing too, of course, and I don't think it's ok when the left does it either.  jmfcst recently posted a thread that called Olberman out on trash-talking his opposition too, and the fact that jmfcst doesn't like it and calls Olberman out on it is fine by me.  I'm not a fan of trash talk, no matter whether it's used by friends or by foes.

[Zarn]

With some actual evidence to support it, calling someone out as a racist is not racist.

[Brittain33]

With some actual evidence to support it, calling someone out as a racist is not racist.

True, but we're talking about Glenn Beck's attack on Barack Obama, so that's not relevant.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. would normally argue that a false accusation of racism is among the worst things you can do—as bad or worse than actual racism based on the tenor of their claims.