• The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday, August 12, 2009 10:52 PM

Some major advertisers are distancing themselves from Fox News host Glenn Beck after he called President Obama a racist during a July 28 broadcast. Color of Change, an African-American online political organization has been spurring advertisers to stop supporting "The Glenn Beck Program."

Insurance company Geico and Lawyers.com, which is owned by LexisNexis, have pulled their ads from the show. Additionally, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance and SC Johnson say their ad placements during the broadcast were made in error. The controversy stems from Beck's comment that President Obama is a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people."

A Fox rep notes that Geico is shifting dollars to other programs, so there has been no revenue lost by the network. Progressive Insurance rep Cristy Cote says that the company had not bought advertising on the show in the first place, and "we contacted the network to correct the error." A Procter & Gamble rep echoed that sentiment: "Any of our ads that ran did so by mistake, and we'll try to make sure that doesn't happen in the future."

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