WWW- Most of the time, the American Family Association's efforts to get advertisers to pull their sponsorship from shows the organization deems racy or obscene falls on deaf ears; after all, the companies like making money and most feel that the AFA is full of crap. But every once in a while, they hit their target.
Case in point: T-Mobile's CEO Robert Dotson wrote the association to tell them that the company is pulling its ads from all FX shows. The CEO, in response to the AFA's "Fed-Up With FX" campaign, watched the shows on the channel and decided they were too edgy and racy for his company, which markets a lot to families.
Granted, some of FX's wares lately have been on that razor's edge: Rescue Me recently had a controversial episode where Denis Leary's character rapes an ex. And Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are rife with strong profanities, sexual and scatological situations, and violence (hey, that's what makes those shows good, but that's just me...). Here's what I wonder about, though: FX has been airing shows like this for years now. Didn't anyone at T-Mobile have any clue about the content of the shows on FX? It shouldn't take a letter from the AFA to make an advertiser aware of where their commercials are appearing. My guess is that they didn't care until someone decided to protest. There's no outrage if no one notices, right?
