Accessible Airwaves

Once again, the United Church of Christ's inclusion-themed, 30-second TV commercial has been rejected by the broadcast networks and now cable network, Viacom.

The United Church of Christ's all-inclusive message has been deemed "too controversial."

It’s time for equal access.

1. Let Your Voice Be Heard - Send a Message to Viacom Viacom accepts ads laced with sexual innuendo, greed, violence, and the politics of personal destruction, while our message of openness and welcome is not allowed. Tell Viacom to make the airwaves accessible. 2. Tell Your Friends Broadcasters who use the public airwaves have a responsibility to operate in the public interest. Spread the word about our campaign!

ABC Rejects Inclusion While Embracing Exclusion

After rejecting the UCC's ads that focus on inclusion, ABC television is allowing James Dobson's Focus on the Family to air two commercials during the network's season finale of "Supernanny" on May 2.

In an Associated Press story (May 2), Focus on the Family's president and CEO, Jim Daly, said the spots were an attempt by his organization to offer "faith-based" advice on parenting, despite the fact that ABC executives have twice denied recent similar requests by the UCC to purchase network time as part of its national advertising campaign.

Focus on the Family is clearly a religious organization, here's yet another illustration of how a particular narrow agenda makes up the rules as they go along, while another religious viewpoint cannot even purchase time on the people's airwaves to proclaim an all-inclusive message.

In December and March, the three major networks denied a purchasing request by the Cleveland-based UCC. NBC and CBS rejected the UCC's 30-second ads as "too controversial." ABC, however, sidestepped the fray by maintaining that it has a blanket policy against all religious advertising.

Why are the network executives so willing to bow to this narrow agenda of the religious right? Why is one religious viewpoint continually accommodated by the network elites?

Focus on the Family may be using a non-sectarian come-on, but what kind of assurances can ABC provide that Focus on the Family's follow-up literature is respectful of all faiths, respectful of non-traditional families, respectful of the one million kids that have same-sex couples as parents?

Posted by The Rev. Bob Chase
5/04/2005 08:58:00 AM
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About OC Inc.

The Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc. is the media advocacy arm of the United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant denomination of over 1.3 million members. The United Church of Christ was the first voice to demand that broadcasters who use the public airwaves have a responsibility to operate in the public interest. In the 1960s, the United Church of Christ earned its place in U.S. broadcasting history by successfully challenging the license of WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss, for refusing to broadcast news and information about African Americans.