• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 11, 2006

On Thursday, News Corp.-owned New York Post zinged the CW network. Not for anything it programmed, but for the location of one of its advertising buys. In a story titled "He's Baaaack!!!" reporter Jennifer Fermino documented the return to New York of Robert Durst, an eccentric multimillionaire convicted of murdering and dismembering his elderly neighbor in Texas in 2003--noting that in the Post photo snapped by Matthew McDermott, an eerily appropriate CW11 poster reading "Free to Be Scary" appears on a phone booth over the paroled murderer's shoulder.

In fact, the CW11 slogan became a motif for the article, which began: "He's free, he's scary, and he's here in New York!" Then the article noted the juxtaposition again, playfully implying some cosmic significance: "Coincidentally--or not--a telephone kiosk bearing an ad saying 'Free to Be Scary'" loomed over his right shoulder..." The photo caption also drew attention to the CW's "chilling slogan."

Of course the poster, promoting "Supernatural," was an innocent bystander in all this--as was the poster for Skechers footwear just visible on another face of the booth. Skechers was apparently spared from association with Durst only because Durst himself obscured its poster (after all Durst is not only "free to be scary" but "sketchy" as well, sure fodder for the Post).

The actual effect of the pairing is a question for subliminal psychologists and branding experts. But a spokesman for the CW, Paul McGuire, ventured: "I don't think it's good PR. That's a marketing image for Supernatural, so it's awkward. But I get it. It's the Post. What can I say?"