More than a dozen radio stations in major markets across the country have refused to air a series of frank, 30-second spots promoting cbc tv’s twentysomething drama series Liberty Street.
The four commercials, a project handled by Toronto agency Bensimon Byrne for Liberty Street Producer Epitomy Pictures, features four actors from the show speaking in character about aspects of their sex lives and other matters.
One spot, from the character ‘Nathan’ says:
‘I’m gay. You know, as in queer, faggot. But I’m an Indian, too. A wagon burner. A redskin. I don’t mind the Indian part, at least not anymore. I’m proud to be a native Canadian. I mean I’m proud to be gay, too. The difference is my father already knows I’m an Indian.’
Another spot, this time from ‘Marsha’, says:
‘I wanna get laid. I wanna have sex. High rev, full out, two-body slammin’ sex. I love the feeling of a hard male body. But bodies always come with souls, and when souls get mixed in, it gets weird. Sex is one thing. I mean, sex is great. It’s, er, love I have trouble with.’
A third spot has ‘Frank’ saying he is having sex with his female boss and it is men who are supposed to be in charge of things.
In the fourth spot ‘Stuart’ speaks of his virginity, his wife and masturbation.
All four spots conclude by saying each character lives on Liberty Street and can be found on cbc on Wednesday nights at 8.30 p.m.
Jack Bensimon, president of Bensimon Byrne, says the spots reflect the show’s themes and characters, and by using radio he thought he could connect with Liberty Street’s viewers or potential viewers.
Bensimon says although Liberty Street’s core audience is aged 18 to 34, the campaign was intended to help build viewership outside that age group, so as many stations as possible were surveyed.
He says what he has found troubling is the assumption by some radio executives that the spots would offend listeners who fall outside the 18 to 34 demographic.
Bensimon is emphatic it was never his intention to sensationalize the program, but to produce creative that was in context.
He says the objective was to run an ad campaign.
Bensimon rejects suggestions the Liberty Street situation mirrors other recent incidences in which, he says, certain advertising images were used gratuitously and caused controversy.
He says about a month ago, Bensimon Byrne began its preparation for the campaign by sending the scripts for the commercials to radio stations around the country, following up later with tapes.
He says some stations rejected the spots by letter and others by phone, but overall he was ‘taken aback’ by the consistency of the rejections.
Bensimon says he is perturbed with the censorship of creative before it gets to air, although he adds ‘I can live with stuff being pulled.’
Ron Kizney, station manager at all oldies station cky in Winnipeg, which rejected the spots, says an internal committee of the outlet’s programming director, creative director and at least one other person screens spots that might be offensive.
Diana McLaughlan, KY 58’s creative director and a member of that committee, says the commercials were found to be offensive and so did not run.
McLaughlan says much tamer spots than the Liberty Street ones have aired on KY 58 and have drawn a number of listener complaints.
Obviously, she says, Bensimon Byrne knew the spots were controversial otherwise the agency would not have tried to pre-clear them.
Gary Slaight, president and chief executive officer at Standard Broadcasting, owner of Toronto’s cfrb and CKFM ‘The Mix,’ among other stations, says he remembers seeing the scripts for the Liberty Street spots and was put off by the language in them.
Further, Slaight says, he questions Bensimon Byrne’s consideration of a buy on cfrb when it is well known the news-talk station’s demographic skews older and its audience is aged 35+.
Marc Paris, vice-president and general manager at cjez in Toronto, says the creative for Liberty Street went too far and was seeking to shock.
Paris says nor was any target audience specified when pre-clearance was sought.
cjez, or EZ97.3, was revamped this summer and broadcasts primarily to women aged 25 to 54.
Other stations which refused to air the spots include cjch in Halifax, cklg in Vancouver, Fun 102 in Saskatoon, cjob in Winnipeg (which turned the spots into a call-in show topic), CFBR ‘The Bear’ in Edmonton, cjme in Regina, ckik in Calgary and new country station ciss-fm in Toronto.
Brian Jones, president and chief executive officer of the Radio Marketing Bureau in Toronto, says ‘it’s strictly up to the stations’ if they refuse to broadcast certain commercials.
‘It’s strictly a judgment call,’ Jones says.
Linda Schuyler, president of Toronto-based Epitomy Pictures, says she is surprised and disappointed with the ‘paternal’ attitude of the station executives who think they know what is best for their listeners.
Schuyler says for the time being she will not be advertising Liberty Street.
She says she has never encountered a situation like this before, although she notes this is the first radio campaign she has ever done.
Liberty Street is in its second season.
Last season, cbc aired 11 episodes of the half-hour show. This season, the program is halfway through its 15 scheduled episodes.
The stations that ran the Liberty Street spots were seven rock outlets, cfny in Brampton, Ont., Energy 108 in Burlington, Ont., Q107 in Toronto, ckzz and cfox in Vancouver, cjay in Calgary and cfrq in Halifax.
ciut, the University of Toronto station, also aired them.
Bensimon intended to run the commercials Nov. 28 for a week, with a second flight slated for January.
He says he was hoping for exposure in four to six markets, and although the spots did air on eight stations, he would have preferred ‘a couple more.’
Scot Turner, program director for Energy 108, says the commercials’ content was discussed internally before the dance music station aired them.
Turner says the ‘Stuart’ ad’s talk of masturbation was a point of internal debate, but Turner reasons if people are ‘intelligent enough to listen’ to the entire commercial they will realize they are ‘all actuality’ from a tv show and not out of context.
However, he says, a lot of listeners may be in a rush and not hear everything, thus misconstruing the spots.
Turner says by Dec. 4 Energy 108 had received five calls of complaint.
Chris Pandoff, station manager at ‘album rock’ outlet cfox in Vancouver, says the creative shocks at first, then listeners realize it is advertising.
As for refusing to air the spots because of their content, Pandoff says, ‘The honest-to-God truth is it never came up as an issue.’
So far, he says, there have been no complaints to cfox about the spots.
Gary Russell, vice-president and general manager at rock station cjay, says his outlet ran three of the four spots, declining to air the ‘Nathan’ spot since ‘it could be misconstrued.’
Russell says it is his guess it gets down to philosophical differences whether to run potentially controversial advertising.
Interviewed Dec. 4, Russell said he had not yet received any complaints about the Liberty Street spots.
Meg Borthwick, station manager at the University of Toronto’s ciut, says the station opted to run two of the four spots after ‘quite a bit of debate.’
Borthwick says because ciut does a lot of programming on gay and lesbian issues and women’s rights, it was decided to decline the ‘Nathan’ and the ‘Frank’ spots.
Eric Stafford, operations manager at rock station cfrq in Halifax, says although ‘there’s no doubt the matter is controversial at best,’ the people talking in the spots are characters in a tv show.
Stafford says before the commercials were broadcast, he went to all his staff at the station for their opinions.
For the first two of the spots’ six-day run on cfrq Stafford says he got the ‘odd call’ of complaint and by the end of their flight the calls and letters ran at 10 a day, which is ‘still not bad.’
However, he says if the volume of complaint had been that high in the first couple of days the station would have pulled the spots.
As for the future of this campaign, Bensimon says he has pretty much concluded it will not involve radio since he cannot buy enough stations to secure enough reach.
