Joe Garofoli at SFGate, the online version of San Francisco Chronicle, says that NBC-owned WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., the NBC affiliate, refused to run the ad below:
A terrific ad, if you ask me. And, yes, I'm biased.
The plan was for the ad to run during President Obama's Tuesday appearance as Jay Leno's guest on the Tonight Show. Garofoli writes:
“After a careful review,” a station spokesman said, “it was determined that this ad violates our guidelines. We have communicated that to the advertiser.”
Declining to air an ad rarely happens. (A TV station turning down money? C’mon, now.) Here’s where the ad may have run into trouble, according to NBC‘s advertising guidelines, it was seen as an attack of a personal nature.
Quipped someone close to the ad team: “Did we hurt the pipeline’s feelings?”
No, more like it was directed at TransCanada CEO Russ Girling.
The guidelines:
General Standard for Acceptance:
We do not make judgments on an advertiser’s opinions, and we accept issue advertisements that express divergent points of view. We do, however, reserve the right to require substantiation of factual claims made by an advertiser. Advertisements generally will be accepted if there is a basis for the claims and such claims fall within the bounds of reasonable debate.
Unacceptable Content:
An advertisement may be rejected if its content, or other content referenced in the ad or otherwise disseminated by the advertiser, is grossly offensive (e.g., on racial, religious or ethnic grounds). An advertisement may also be rejected if: (1) it is merely an attack of a personal nature, a direct attack on an individual business or a comment on a private dispute; or (2) it contains violent or otherwise graphic or potentially offensive content that is deemed incompatible with a network’s viewing environment or general standards; or (3) its content or style of production is otherwise deemed inconsistent with a network’s viewing environment or general standards, as determined by a network in its sole discretion. An acceptance may be subject to limitations regarding time period and type of programming
Lots of wiggle room there to reject just about anything the powers-that-be want to reject. Those powers-that-be include, of course, the fossil-fuel industry with its hefty advertising budget. The industry ads, of course, are all daffodils and tra-la-la-la, never anything offensive in them at all, nuh uh.
Please join Daily Kos and the Natural Resources Defense Council in urging President Obama to keep his promise and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.