REAGAN BIRTHDAY SALUTE CANCELED

A nationally syndicated television show saluting President Reagan on his 76th birthday has been canceled because national advertisers have been backing out since the Iran arms scandal broke, the distributor said Thursday.

“Because of the Iranian thing, the advertisers thought it advisable to disassociate themselves with the program,” said Sidney Love, general sales manager for YJR Enterprises Inc., of New York, distributor for “Reagan’s Way.”

“Reagan’s Way,” a 60-minute “historical” program that traced Reagan’s career from movies to presidential inauguration, was cleared to air Feb. 6 -- Reagan’s birthday -- in 95% of the United States, including the top 50 television markets, and Alaska and Hawaii, Love said. Most of those major market stations had scheduled it in prime-time, he added.

The film was a joint production of Daniel Selznick, son of David O. Selznick and a friend of First Lady Nancy Reagan, and French television, Love said. It was shown on French TV in 1984, but has never been broadcast in the United States, he said.

Love said he did not know if it would ever air.

When the Iran scandal broke, the national advertisers began calling YJR Enterprises to bow out of the project, Love said. He refused to name the advertisers, but said “they are major corporations that you see in network commercials all the time.”

YJR then sent a letter to stations that had arranged to air the special to announce it would be canceled.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control resulting in major sponsor withdrawals we regret to inform you that ‘Reagan’s Way’ must be canceled . . . It cannot be aired as planned without the necessary advertising support.”

WPIX in New York was one of the stations that planned to use the program.

“Yes, we planned to run it but we were just notified that the program was canceled,” said Marty Appel, vice president of public relations at WPIX. “We don’t know why.”

The show was a “time sale,” meaning that YJR gave the show to stations in exchange for commercial time within the program, which YJR then sold to national advertisers. When the advertisers backed out, YJR’s profit source dried up.

The film is an independently produced documentary that traces Reagan’s life up to his first inauguration.