CBS's 'super' business plan favors Religious Right (Shouldn't those 'gay' ads really target soccer?)

Collegian ^ | 1/31/10 | Kevin Hollinshead

[Libloather]

CBS's 'super' business plan favors Religious Right
by Kevin Hollinshead
The Rocky Mountain Collegian
last edited: 9:33 pm 01/31/2010

Super Bowl Sunday was once considered a holy day in this country, purely a celebration of football, funny commercials and obscenely huge piles of chicken wings. You certainly never let hot-button politics pervade the sanctity of the gridiron.

CBS, however, is now directly involved with an unprecedented politicization of the game.

The network recently decided to air an anti-abortion commercial from the evangelical political organization Focus on the Family during this Sunday’s broadcast. The ad will reportedly feature Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother discussing how her “personal faith” convinced her to carry her son to term while she and her husband were missionaries in the Philippines, despite medical advice to terminate the pregnancy.

By accepting the ad, CBS reversed its long-standing policy against running any ad that “touches on and/or takes a position on one side of a current controversial issue” on the network, particularly during sporting events. In 2004, they famously rejected a commercial from the United Church of Christ, citing this policy.

The UCC ad’s “controversial” tagline was “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we,” a sentiment, last I heard, supported by every Gospel of the New Testament.

The reported tagline of the Focus on the Family ad is “Celebrate family, celebrate life,” which is a coded, divisive rallying cry of the rabid anti-choice movement. In the face of criticism from the UCC, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and a coalition of women’s groups, CBS has been dismissive in its responses. Several statements have tried to explain that this decision somehow reflects a more modern, forward-thinking approach toward advocacy ads from CBS.

Given the state of today’s economy and abortion’s status as the single-most polarizing social issue in American politics, it’s naïve of the network to expect anyone to believe that. It clearly comes down to the $2.7 million CBS gets paid to run each 30-second Super Bowl ad. Yet, not even that explains the newest wrinkle in this controversy.

On Friday, CBS rejected a silly commercial from the gay dating site ManCrunch.com, which features two men who suddenly start making out while celebrating a touchdown on TV. The stupid GoDaddy.com commercials with Danica Patrick are more inappropriate in terms of sexual content, yet they’ll surely continue their run during Super Bowls.

ManCrunch.com will no doubt benefit from this attention, but this contradiction of business ethics is troubling nonetheless. CBS seems willing to alienate and offend people for sake of their bottom line, but only certain groups.

CBS is apparently OK with irritating the pro-choice community, but they are unwilling to let the homophobic Religious Right see two men kiss.

Focus on the Family may even be leading CBS into even hotter water. Prominent attorney Gloria Allred has questioned Mrs. Tebow’s claim that Filipino doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy.

Abortion has been illegal in the Philippines since 1930 and is punishable by six-year prison sentences for both the doctor and the mother. Given this, it doesn’t make sense that doctors would have actually advised an abortion, so Allred has announced that she’ll file a complaint with the FTC and the FCC if the ad neglects those facts.

CBS’s actions imply that they either have a financial stake in specifically courting the Religious Right or that they’re simply afraid of their wrath. If this were purely about generating revenue and hype, the ManCrunch.com ad would have been accepted along with Focus on the Family’s.

Typical football fans made uncomfortable by two men kissing likely outnumber those annoyed by anti-choice zealots or Tebow Mania, so CBS is picking commercials accordingly. Yet, even more people will decry any intertwining of politics and football. It just makes you wonder why CBS even put itself in this mess in the first place.

[Libloather]

Super Bowl Sunday was once considered a holy day in this country...

Certain traditions do need to be left alone.

[HapaxLegamenon]

What is wrong by having her say she is grateful for giving birth to such a super athlete?????

[Libloather]

What is wrong by having her say she is grateful for giving birth to such a super athlete?????

Her - who?

[HapaxLegamenon]

Read the article. Apologies for clicking on the first post!

[GOP_Raider]

Don’t send your kids to Colorado State or else they’ll write crap like this in a student newspaper.

[bereanway]

On Friday, CBS rejected a silly commercial from the gay dating site ManCrunch.com, which features two men who suddenly start making out while celebrating a touchdown on TV. The stupid GoDaddy.com commercials with Danica Patrick are more inappropriate in terms of sexual content,

Silly isn't exactly what comes to mind, other than that what a perverse view of sexuality.

[dfwgator]

Why the dig at soccer? It’s not as if soccer is a bastion of homosexuality, in fact many soccer players will tell you they wouldn’t tolerate a gay player on their team.

[Political Junkie Too]

The network recently decided to air an anti-abortion commercial...

I thought they decided to air a pro-choice commercial, where the choice was life.

-PJ

[ari-freedom]

Only religious people are against killing babies? Don’t atheists claim it is possible to be moral without religion?

[JohnLongIsland]

Is it possible that after liberal couple have sex that they turn around and go to each other that maybe we’ll get lucky and have to go to the abortion clinic?

[vpintheak]

So the homo commercial is labelled “silly” and the hot danico commercial is”stupid”

[Onerom99]

Why do people on here have to make mindless digs at soccer?

[Libloather]

Why do people on here have to make mindless digs at soccer?

It's not a mindless dig - just a regular dig at a mindless sport.

[narses]

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[Onerom99]

Good one jackass. :-/.

[Rummyfan]

Super Bowl Sunday was once considered a holy day in this country, purely a celebration of football, funny commercials and obscenely huge piles of chicken wings. You certainly never let hot-button politics pervade the sanctity of the gridiron.

Huh? Like CBS broadcasting an interview with the Clintons directly after the game in 1992? No, no politics there.

[Rummyfan]

Tim Tebow’s mother...

[Rummyfan]

Prominent attorney Gloria Allred has questioned Mrs. Tebow’s claim that Filipino doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy.

What a hateful ugly p-o-s Gloria Allred is.....

[kcvl]

Kevin Hollinshead, Dennis Kucinich supporter. Favorite people: Keith Olbermann & Bill Maher

Press Here

Rush Limbaugh makes a living by mindlessly railing against any government program that benefits society as a whole, including government-run health care, flinging around that dirty word, “socialism.” Health reform has been unfairly given a negative connotation by wonderful human beings like him.

Yet, he apparently loves socialized medicine now, if his praise for Hawaii’s universal health care system is any indication.

Kevin Hollinshead = IDIOT

[garbanzo]

which is a coded, divisive rallying cry of the rabid anti-choice movement.

I've read better, more objective journalism from Cold-War era TASS and Pravda articles.