Good question
Posted by David on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 at 8:38 AM.
Kirstie over at Nobody's Doll asks a very good question:
Anyway, the burning question in the wake of last night's televised extravaganza is: why the hell wouldn't CBS air MoveOn's ad? Remind me? For God's sake, nearly every other commercial they showed was about penises. (Levitra, Cialis, the crotch-biting dog, Cedric's bikini wax, Wallace the bagpiper, & c.) Now, I cannot personally claim to be anti-penis per se, but I do feel obliged to ask: penises are acceptable family entertainment fare, but politics are not? We can engage in a national discourse about erectile dysfunction, but not the budget deficit? Nelly and P. Diddy can implore us to take our clothes off, Kid Rock -- well, never mind, I have no idea what Kid Rock was saying -- but Nelly and Kid Rock are more wholesome public figures than a group of citizens concerned about national economic policy? I feel a little baffled, frankly. Couldn't we, you know, have dropped Budweiser's farting horse ad in favor of a little political commentary? I can't believe that farting horses and alcoholic beverages make for excessively high-toned Sunday night family television.But perhaps there is some greater motive for which I am failing to account. Who knows? I do hate to be such an old fuddy-dud.
rfkj, on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 at 8:50 AM:
Conspiracy theory: Anheuser-Busch, along with Pepsi, pretty much owns Super Bowl advertising. If Anheuser-Busch were not propping up the Super Bowl, the ad rate would not be nearly as high, so it's probably in the networks' best interests to keep AB happy.
Anheuser-Busch also makes large campaign contributions. They give money to both sides, to hedge their bets, but they give three times as much to Republicans as they do to Democrats.
All AB has to do is place a bug in somebody's ear about the MoveOn ad: run this and we pull all our advertising. AB doesn't need the Super Bowl--the Super Bowl needs AB. So what AB wants, AB gets.
(Disclaimer: this is mostly gratuitous assertion, not grounded in fact. But it's a theory.)