CBS Turns Down Ad From Telephone Operators Union
CBS has rejected a Communications Workers of America’s television commercial that is designed to spur callers to choose operator-assisted long-distance telephone service.
ABC and NBC said they approved the spot, and the 30-second advertisement was scheduled to be broadcast Wednesday on ABC’s “World News Tonight.”
But lawyers for CBS rejected the advertisement for the “CBS Evening News,” claiming it constituted “advocacy advertising.”
George Schweitzer, vice president-communications with the CBS Broadcast Group, said the commercial message ran against CBS policy because it dealt with “a labor-management issue”--the retention of telephone operators.
Schweitzer said CBS would have accepted the spot if it had dropped the line: “Don’t give it up.”
The Communication Workers said their response to CBS was: “We won’t give it up. We’ll take our spot to another network.”
The commercial is part of the Communication Workers’ $2-million public relations campaign.
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