Sinclair drops the anti-Kerry program

Hobbes

http://mediamatters.org/items/200410200001

I wonder if they will give the guy back his job that was fired for saying he didn't think it was a good program to air.

Saw Michael Moore interviewed on the Tonight show last week on NBC where he offered to give the farenheit movie for free to all the sinclair channels.
He said it would prove that they were *cough* balanced if they showed it.

Probably one of the the main reasons why they dropped the anti Kerry film.

bonkey

Someone else offered above-advertising-rates to screen an hour-long pro-Kerry documentary as well......

...then there were the comments (by the chairman of the board, I think) that this was refused because it was a blatant attempt by some to unduly influence the election...

...and apparently quite a significant public backlash already...

...and so on...

I'd very much doubt it was Moore, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him take the same line as Earthman and claim significant influence.

Either way...who cares at the end of the day...

Its the right decision.

jc

bonkey

bonkey wrote:

I'd very much doubt it was Moore, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him take the same line as Earthman and claim significant influence.
jc

errr
do you actually think that offering a blockbusting documentary for free to the sinclair channels and making the offer on a popular prime time U.S TV show had little effect?
It seems to me(and as is obvious from my posts on him in this forum I am no Moore fan) that if they were to refuse to show it , yet still show the anti Kerry film, they would have been exposed as partisan...( despite the fact that, that might have been increasingly obvious anyway) something the electoral commission might have something to say about...

Hobbes

From what I gather they dropped it mainly due to a large number of sponsers threatening to remove their revenue for the channel.

bonkey

Earthman wrote:

do you actually think that offering a blockbusting documentary for free to the sinclair channels and making the offer on a popular prime time U.S TV show had little effect?

Yes, I do.

I think it entirely ignores the myriad of other items which would be at least equally significant.

Stock fell 17% in the past 2 weeks over this issue, and was still dropping. Do you think that was Moore's doing? Do you think maybe it might have had something to do with the decision? Couple dropping share price with - as Hobbes just mentioned - potential loss of revenue from sponsors....still nothing significant in your books?

Add in the growing public backlash which would drop viewer ratings, leading to further decline in share-price, the charge you can impose for advertising, and so on.....Still not significant?

Of course, you could say that all of that happened because of Moore, but like I said...I doubt it. To me, its not much different to claiming that Fahrenheit911 was the primary reason Kerry got elected, should he win.

Moore is influential, but not that influential.

jc

<edit>
Also, given that Moore has just released 911 on DVD, (and didn't he do a second cinematic release in the US recently...an edited or updated version?)....I'd have been staggered if he could actually legally do what he was offering to do in the first place.

uberwolf

long and short of it though is that this is the right decision. The capacity and influence of small and biased groups can have is still a significant problem in the US though IMO.

Hobbes

bonkey wrote:

Moore is influential, but not that influential.

Hang on a second even the Right believe Moore is influential, at least at effecting the tides.

Also, given that Moore has just released 911 on DVD, (and didn't he do a second cinematic release in the US recently...an edited or updated version?)....I'd have been staggered if he could actually legally do what he was offering to do in the first place.

He has also given the go ahead to have it shown for free on public access TV.

http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/dailystar/44435.php

bonkey

bonkey wrote:

Yes, I do.

I think it entirely ignores the myriad of other items which would be at least equally significant.

Hang on a second there,I said it was probably one of the main reasons,I don't see where you can say I was ignoring other reasons as not being equally significant.
Sinclair are showing parts of the programme without a Democratic party rebuttal.
Their shares have bounced back, probably when it came to light that advertisers weren't actually deserting sinclair, but merely asking not to have their adverts placed in and around the programme.

I'd have been staggered if he could actually legally do what he was offering to do in the first place.

I don't know enough about the insides of Moores contracts, but I doubt that he would have been saying this on a popular primetime show like the tonight show if he couldnt arrange it.
It's all very well for sinclair to be claiming that they are showing parts of the anti kerry documentary and the Democratic campaign are refusing to offer a rebuttal( reference the Globe link above )-Sinclair have as much ground to stand on there as say an average presentation on Fox news, but it would be highly dangerous of them to be openly refusing the offer to show farenheit if they were showing the anti kerry movie.