Commentary
Fox News Reneges On Agreement To Run Trump Impeachment Ad
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 7, 2017
Political TV advertising can be a hornet’s nest of fact and fiction.
This comes with the territory; viewers always take messaging with a grain of salt. Or maybe a shaker. However, in an age of increasingly partisan TV news programming, viewers' input can take on a different value for TV executives as they make advertising decisions.
Fox News Channel, MSNBC and others had been running a commercial from California billionaire Tom Steyer that implored viewers to urge their Congressional representatives to push for impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Now Fox News Channel has stopped those commercials. Why? It’s not about any TV network standards with regard to a content issue. It’s about Fox News viewers' reactions.
Jack Abernethy, co-president of Fox News Group, issued this response: "Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money."
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In response, lawyers for Steyer accused Fox News of breaching a contractual agreement to air the commercial. Steyer’s $11 million campaign has also run on Fox-owned local TV stations and other TV networks. Fox News Channel made the decision to stop the ad on October 31.
Political advertising is different from selling shampoo. Laws protecting consumers from false advertising of consumer products are heavily enforced. TV stations can reject ads for any reason from political groups -- but not political candidates.
Cable TV networks have no restrictions on political advertising. So do TV executives need to take a closer look here, especially concerning future TV brand appreciation?
The confusing part is that Fox News Channel had been running the spot for a week, and then it was cancelled. Add in this wrinkle: The commercial still airs on some Fox TV stations, according to reports.
For many, it is no surprise that one of the Fox News Channel shows where the commercial had been airing was “Fox & Friends” -- the early show that President Trump reportedly watches daily.
We understand. TV friends can be hard to come by. News programming needs all they can get.
Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
Just curious, what is the exact impeachable offense, minus any hopeful innuendo? I find it more interesting that one billionaire is upset with another billionaire (and that the rest of us should care). Meanwhile, the personal accounts from Donna Brazile are much more telling.
Truth hurts. Tough when you are proven wrong and don't want to admit it. However, there is more to this message than impeachment.
Hearing Faux News use the term "in good conscience" is perhaps the greatest irony of this story
Funny how the comments here focus on politics rather than the agreement made with Fox News or the removal of those commercials from that network after running them for a week. Or which I see as the most important element of the story that Fox turns down advertising revenue in Q4 which is the biggest advertising quarter of the year.
In other word it's not like Fox News viewers will go elsewhere so why leave all of that money sitting on the table.