Why no commercials during 9/11....SCUM Mngmnt.

[Luke]

From The NYRMB and The New York Daily News

David Hinckley's "Critic at Large" column in Sunday's Daily News entitled:

"Cashing in on bad times -- Smarting from lost ad revenue on 9/11, broadcaster seeks its pound of flesh".

Mr. Hinckley says twice that he feels uncomfortable
as a result of Viacom's filing a business interruption insurance claim for revenues lost as a result of broadcasting commercial free after the WTC disaster.

David Hinckley's 2/2/03 column - NY Daily News




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>>>"it's all in your head....but select, don't settle"<<<

[Luke]

Cashing in on bad times Smarting from lost ad revenue on 9/11, broadcaster seeks its pound of flesh <P>
When the media handed out praise for selfless conduct in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they saved a few accolades for themselves - and deservedly so. <P>
Without minimizing anyone else's contribution, it was largely the media, with thousands of radio, television and newspaper outlets, that took us past disbelief and blind rage to an understanding of the unthinkable. <P>
For at least a few days, print journalists, broadcast reporters and anchors were perceived not as a suspicious bunch with their own ideological agendas and economic interests, but colleagues on the same team with the readers, viewers and listeners they serve. <P>
In his new memoir,

>>>"it's all in your head....but select, don't settle"<<<

[Luke]

"This Just In," veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer confirms what most of
us wanted to think about the media for those few days.

"At CBS, we went on the air and stayed on the air," he wrote. "No one worried about cost."

Only now, that doesn't seem to have been exactly true.

Viacom, parent company of CBS television and Infinity radio outlets, has filed an insurance
claim, reportedly for $200 million, to cover revenue it lost by canceling all advertising for the
several days after 9/11.

Now Viacom, which is making no public comment on the whole matter, has every right to do this. The company carries insuranceagainst business interruption, and this was surely that.
But it feels uncomfortable.

It's like finding the Good Samaritan who took you to the emergency room after the accident wants to bill for time and mileage.

You're still glad he took you there. But this makes it a different transaction, a different relationship.

We have known all along that someone at Viacom was keeping score. The company reported in late 2001 that it lost $190 million in television advertising after 9/11, and at this point Viacom may feel it has a fiduciary obligation to its stockholders to seek this compensation.

That said, it still feels uncomfortable.

First, television and radio airwaves do not belong to the private corporations that make money from their use. The airwaves are
public. Under federal law, the airwaves are licensed to
corporations on the express premise that they use them to
serve the public interest.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to expect that covering extraordinary news would simply be part of the deal, part of every media outlets operating plan, and there has rarely been a more clear-cut case of serving the public interest than staying with the news after Sept. 11.

Second, millions of Americans suffered losses from 9/11. Some people lost only money, others lost jobs or homes. Some lost their loved ones. Others lost their way of life. Many received some financial compensation for this. Many more did not, or cannot.

While there's no broad-based scale on which to weigh the overall equity of this complex process, most of us probably would say that if hundreds of millions remain to be handed out, people like the uncompensated EMS and rescue workers who still can't breathe properly should be ahead of major media corporations in the queue.

Viacom's insurance claim reportedly argues that the company was in effect forced to pull ads and thus lose all that money, because otherwise it could have been vulnerable to license-renewal challenges for not meeting its public-service obligation.

Maybe that's a winning argument. But to us civilians, it sounds a lot like saying, "We did it because we had to," i.e., public service is an annoying intrusion on Viacom's real business, making money by selling ads.

That may be how, in the real world, Viacom looks at it. That may be how any business would look at it. It's quite likely Viacom regards this insurance claim as simply a routine business move: We paid the premium, let's file for the benefits.

But television and radio news operations are not a crushed hot-dog stand on Vesey St. whose owner needs to be made whole. In a very real sense, the media exist as they do precisely to
do what it did after the attacks.

I'm guessing the journalists of 9/11 and their support teams, at Viacom and elsewhere, were compensated for no more than a tiny fraction of the hours they spent on this story. To find that the big boys kept the meter running takes a little of the glow off a shining moment where "no one worried about the cost."



Originally published on February 2, 2003


>>>"it's all in your head....but select, don't settle"<<<

[spoon]

This was truly hard to read. I can't believe the who process and how the feel they were forced. I would refuse the claim as many stations did in fact run ads during this awful time. Also, I'm sure they upped the rates much more then WNEW would have received for horny goat weed. If they do receive the claim, they should be forced to pay all air talent and staff overtime and hazard pay. Which I would only imagine that most (R/F, O/A) would donate it to those who truly need the help. Worst joke of the year.

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