A half-dozen big-spending marketers--including General Motors, American Express and Sprint Nextel--withdrew their support from the "Imus in the Morning" radio show yesterday, and a host of smaller
companies did the same. In a statement, NBC News said that it would no longer simulcast the Imus radio program; it later denied the decision was due to advertiser pressure.
Most of the
advertisers to pull their ads in the past couple of days were big national advertisers with commitments to MSNBC, rather than to the radio broadcast. Much radio advertising is bought on a
market-by-market basis, unlike cable channels. The impact on MSNBC was amplified because many advertisers purchased time across the channel's daytime schedule. As a result, to get out of Imus, several
of the advertisers pulled their ads off the channel's entire schedule.
Earlier in the week, CBS Radio suspended the show for two weeks following racist remarks made by Imus and his
producer, Bernard McGuirk, about the Rutgers womens' basketball team.
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