Some time ago, when I was in radio, one of the bigger controversies the station faced was an ad that was bought by the controversial religious group “Jews for Jesus.” Two men with deep Brooklyn Jewish accents debated whether Jesus was the messiah. “IS!”, said one. “IS NOT!” said the other. The commercial ends with the two saying “IS” amicably.
Complaints from listeners coupled with a Jewish producer’s complaint that the “group had been after her since she was 10 years old” had the station in a tizzy. One of the hosts claimed that not running the ad would be like saying to them “Your money is no good here.”
So what was the result? The station pulled the ads but not after discussing the ad over and over on various talk shows for about 2 days. That’s pretty good air time for what they would have paid for a few 60 second ads.
The same issue is at play here. Is religion’s money no good when it comes to having ads on TV, in this case the Super Bowl? An evangelical group’s ad was rejected by Fox Sports because of the religious content.
The NY Times has the skinny:
The ad shows a group of enthusiastic fans cheering a football game on a flat-screen television. After one exciting play, the broadcast they are watching zooms in on the quarterback, who has “John 3:16” written across his cheekbones, on either side of his nose.
Two beefy guys are puzzled by the verse.
One of them says, “I’ll look it up,” and reaches for his smartphone.
The commercial ends on a black screen with the words “Lookup316.com — A Message of Hope.” At that Web address, the text of the Bible verse floats above an empty football stadium.
Fox Sports refused the ad because, according to a statement, “Fox Broadcasting Company does not accept advertising from religious organizations for the purpose of advancing particular beliefs or practices.”
To be fair an ad for a more liberal religious group called Living the Questions was also pulled. Again the Times has more about their quest to advertise:
Last month, Living the Questions bought radio time for one of its products on stations in Portland, Ore. The one-minute ad for Saving Jesus, a 12-part video course, begins with the question, “Ever feel like Jesus has been kidnapped and taken hostage by the Christian right?”
In Portland, the advertisement was dropped after the first day by three stations owned by Entercom Radio, and dropped after 10 days, and 36 airings, by KINK-FM, owned by Alpha Broadcasting. Erin Hubert, program director for Entercom, said that although the station received only one complaint about the spot, it was dropped “because a local advertiser wanted that time.”
But David M. Felton, co-owner of Living the Questions, said his media buyer told him in a Jan. 6 e-mail that “there is a radio group in Portland that asked us to pull their online streaming spots off of the air due to some listener complaints.”
One of the bigger successes we had a BustedHalo.com was advertising on The Onion, using their non-profit rates. Their snarky audience gave us the exact target we wanted: Younger people who hated hypocrisy and who were jaded by religion but were also intelligent and searching for some answers. They boomed us to an early success.
One person wrote in angry at us: “How could a Catholic site give money to The Onion? They make fun of Catholics, the Pope and even Jesus!”
My reply back was simple: “Because that’s where YOU found us.”
Should religion be allowed to advertise? And where does that end? Should Joel Osteen not be allowed on TV? Where would Billy Graham have been without the media? Vatican mass on TV? That’s all advertising whether we want to think so or not?
What are some of your thoughts? Mine is simple. It’s condescending to think that we can allow Americans to decide what brand of potato chip or toothpaste to buy from using an ad, but we don’t give them the same freedom to decide, by comparison, where to worship.
Anybody got a cool million? I’d like to buy an ad for next year’s game.