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ABC, NBC Affiliates Refuse Network-Accepted Trojan Ad

Although ABC and NBC agreed, in June, to air a Trojan ad that had been rejected by the other major networks, some of the two networks’ affiliates have subsequently refused to run the ad.

Local affiliates in Pittsburgh for ABC and NBC will not run the ads, but the ad will still be shown in that city during national advertising slots on those two networks, writes The New York Times

Pittsburgh was chosen, along with Seattle, as a test market to measure whether a higher frequency of ads - in other words, having the ad run by the local network in addition to running nationally, which increases the frequency with which it is aired - would increase sales. Seattle has not refused to air the ad - in fact, the local affiliates of CBS and Fox, two networks which refused the ad nationally, have also agreed to run it.

The Pittsburgh ABC affiliate said that the station would not accept on-air advertising for Trojan or any other advertiser in the category. The NBC affiliate’s general manager, who pointed out that he is employed by Cox Communications and not NBC, said that the fact that the network had chosen to accept the ad had little bearing on the affiliate.

The first rejection of the ads, by CBS and Fox, gave the product plenty of PR. The networks have been chided on blogs including the Huffington Post, the ad has been viewed nearly 100,000 times on YouTube, and the ad’s website, TrojanEvolve.com, has drawn more than 400,000 unique visitors since June 18.
The ad has been shown on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor and on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, and Planned Parenthood has urged supporters to send complaints to Les Moonves, chief of CBS, and Peter Liguori, the new chairman of entertainment for Fox. More than 44,000 people have sent email messages.