Media Curmudgeon

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January 09, 2007

Don't Mess With Disney

My pals Bruce Braun and Paul Talbot sent me links to a Media Post article by Tom Siebert headlined "Disney Threatens Media Critic, Advertisers Exit Hate-Filled Talk Radio Show."

It seems a blogger and media critic called "Spocko" on a blog named Spocko's Brain "instigated a letter-writing campaign that caused national advertisers including Visa and Master Card to flee the Bay Area ABC-affiliate radio station KSFO."

"KSFO features hard right-wing talk show hosts who endorse torture and mock the tortured, called for public hangings of New York Times editor Bill Keller and other journalists, and demand callers mock Islam. They also mock their own advertisers, calling Chevrolet "shitty" and recommending that Sears' Diehard battery be attached to an African-American's testicles," Sibert writes.

Spocko posted audio files on his site to call attention to the hate rants and sent letters to KSFO's advertisers, which included AT&T and Bank of America. As a result, advertisers started cancelling their schedules on KSFO, which they certainly should have.

But Disney, which owns ABC Radio, began to fight back. Disney lawyers sent cease-and-desist orders to Spocko and to his Internet service provider, "claiming unauthorized use of copyrighted material." So, the gutless Internet provider, 1&1, took down Spocko's blog.

I wrote back my pals that the lesson from this incident is "don't pick a fight with someone who buys lawyers by the ton."

But I want to know is, what is Robert Iger, Disney, and ABC Radio doing allowing this garbage on the air? KSFO used to be a great Rock 'N Roll station back in the late 60s and early 70s--one of the RKO stations consulted by Paul Drew and, originally, by the lengendary Paul Drake back when AM ardio stations such as WABC and WLS dominated the radio dial and the ROck 'N Roll scene--and sold records. AM radio was supplanted by FM radio and now by the Internet and iPods, and AM stations rarely play music; they are filled with talk--bloviators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Big, public companies such as Disney must try to make money on their assets, even AM radio stations, so they'll stoop to put on hate talk in desperation, I guess. I think this Spocko incident of Disney lawyers defending hate-talk radio and shutting down dissent is a good argument for rooting for people with gobs or money buying media companies, keeping them private, and concentrating on good, honest content rather than hate talk, or anything that will make a buck.

I'm rooting for David Geffen to buy the LA Times and Jack Welsh and his group to buy the Boston Globe and for their newspapers to push Bob Iger of Disney to get rid of hate talk and hate crime encouragement.

Posted by Charles Warner at January 9, 2007 01:37 PM

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Karen at January 9, 2007 08:42 PM writes:

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