• by Ken Liebeskind , February 12, 2002

As NBC tries to move ahead with liquor advertising on TV, it is being inundated with public protest.

Today, the National Association of African Americans for Positive Imagery will launch a campaign against the network with public protests in front of NBC affiliates in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. The group's executive director, Rev. Jesse Brown, plans to lead the Philadelphia demonstration later this afternoon. "A large number are upset with NBC accepting the ads," he told MediaPost. "The voluntary ban is no longer in effect. We want it to go back into effect."

Brown says today's protests will be the beginning of a national effort aimed at all 216 NBC affiliates as well as national headquarters in New York. The group plans to meet with the general manager of the Philadelphia affiliate WCAU on Thursday.

Late last week, The Center for Science in the Public Interest sent a protest letter to NBC. The letter, addressed to Robert C. Wright, chairman/CEO of NBC, called for NBC to ban liquor ads and requested a meeting with NBC to air its grievances. The letter was signed by many organizations, including the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, Focus on the Family, the Consumer Federation of America, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the United Methodist Church, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, The National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention and the National PTA. NBC has yet to respond to the letter, according to Kim Miller, CSPI's project coordinator.

The diversity of groups signing the letter demonstrates the widespread opposition to NBC's liquor ads. The opposition began as soon as NBC ran the first ad for Smirnoff vodka in December with a series of letter writing campaigns, sponsored by CSPI, Dads and Daughters and other groups. NBC has also been besieged by phone calls. So many calls have come in to a top network executive that a special phone line has been set up at NBC headquarters to handle the calls.

Many in the industry predicted the protests would die down after the ads began to run, but it appears they have picked up with today's protest.

Meanwhile, efforts in Washington to regulate liquor advertising haven't really gotten off the ground. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) are among the Congressmen who have appealed to NBC to stop the advertising. Wolf has threatened legislative action and asked the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to intervene. Thus far, nothing has happened, primarily because Congress went into recess just after the first Smirnoff ad ran and is busy with Enron matters now. It remains to be seen whether federal action will be taken, similar to the heavy restrictions that regulate cigarette advertising.

NBC is trying to downplay the public protest. "There's a lot of misinformation out there," a spokesman told MediaPost, claiming the protestors don't understand NBC's liquor advertising policy. In fact, the protestors condemn the guidelines NBC instituted, such as one that says liquor ads must run after 9 pm, which is "window dressing, designed to fool the public and distract critics of this preposterous plan," according to one protestor.

The spokesman wouldn't provide more information about NBC's response to the public protests and wouldn't speculate on whether NBC would ever pull its liquor ads because of the protests.