TELEVISION CONFRONTS THE CONTRACEPTIVE ISSUE : Condom Commercials Increasing, but Networks Still Won’t Accept Ads

A box of Trojan brand condoms, with its silhouette of a man and woman against a blue background, dominates the screen. An announcer speaks: “The Surgeon General says, ‘The best protection against infection now--barring abstinence--is use of a condom.’ This is a box of Trojans. Use it in good health. Trojan, for all the right reasons.”

The face of a young woman fills the screen for the LifeStyles brand: “I never thought having an intimate relationship would be a matter of life or death, but because of AIDS, I’m afraid. AIDS isn’t just a gay disease . . . and everybody who gets it dies. The Surgeon General says proper use of condoms can reduce your risk. . . . The condoms I buy are called LifeStyles. I’ll do a lot for love, but I’m not ready to die for it.”

Here and there across the nation, these condom commercials are starting to appear on television. AIDS is beginning to make them acceptable. Some station managers and owners even cite a secondary benefit: prevention of “babies having babies”--the spread of unwed teen pregnancy.

For years, the promotion of condoms as a form of birth control was about as welcome on television as nudity. When some stations, including those in San Jose, Calif., and Canton, Ohio, aired a soft-sell Trojan commercial in 1975, listener response was so negative the stations quickly pulled the spots.

Now, under the specter of AIDS, 15-second ads for Trojans and 30-second ads for LifeStyles began appearing last week on two stations in Detroit, as well as in San Francisco and Indianapolis. They are expected shortly in Providence, R.I., while scattered stations from Portland, Ore., to Washington, D.C., from Minneapolis to Mobile, Ala.--as well as KCOP (Channel 13) in Los Angeles--say they are ready to air appropriate condom commercials. (Six cable networks also air condom ads.)

In Portland last Thursday, Kristine Gebbie, administrator for the state’s health division, announced that her department is sending letters to Oregon’s TV and radio stations urging them to broadcast the ads.

She said the commercials’ potential to offend some people is outweighed by the product’s ability to prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Gebbie questioned why “stations find it acceptable to advertise douches and tampons, but not condoms.”

And in Washington today, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists today urged media acceptance of contraceptive advertising. With a policy statement issued by its president, Dr. Harry S. Jonas, supporting “re sponsible advertising of prescription and over-the-counter contraceptives,” the college became the first major medical organization to call for such advertising.

Meanwhile, four broadcast groups announced last week that they endorse running condom commercials--basically, as individual stations are saying, those that are in good taste, have disease prevention as a theme, and are aired in the late evening. They are: Knight-Ridder Broadcasting and Scripps Howard Broadcasting, each with eight stations, plus McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Co. and Post-Newsweek Stations Inc., each with four stations.

“I was kind of surprised,” said Joel Chaseman, president of the Post-Newsweek stations, in Washington. “As it happened on this one, four stations independently came to roughly the same conclusion, that the preponderance of opinion now in the communities is that the use of these devices ought to be encouraged. Certainly there’s the fear of AIDS, and the other is babies having babies.

“Four stations,” Chaseman emphasized, “as widespread as Jacksonville, Fla., to Detroit to Miami and Hartford (Conn.) in the heart of what used to be thought as staid old New England.”

Reaction to condom commercials that have already aired--virtually all in late evening hours or when children are in school--is mixed.

WXYZ, the ABC affiliate in Detroit owned by Scripps Howard, the first station in the nation to air the ads the night of Jan. 26 and the morning of Jan. 27, got a 2-1 negative response from about 300 calls on the LifeStyles ad. But Vice President and General Manager Jeanne Findlater said she was not worried because “it’s usually the people who are upset that call.”

However, when WDIV, the NBC affiliate in Detroit owned by Post-Newsweek, aired the same ad Jan. 29 during the 11 p.m. news, the station received only 10 phone calls, evenly divided, “and that’s not a significant number,” President and General Manager Amy McCombs noted. “Obviously, the issue of contraceptive advertising has been bubbling. Our responsibility is to keep the gate open. We can’t close the door on information. So the question for us was, ‘Why not accept such advertising?’ ”

Both Findlater and McCombs cited the incidence of teen pregnancy--Detroit ranks fourth in the nation--along with AIDS. “We have one of the highest infant mortality rates,” McCombs said.

San Francisco’s KRON, an NBC affiliate owned by Chronicle Broadcasting, got an overwhelmingly favorable response to its Trojan ad. Of the first 205 calls and 168 letters, 77% of the calls and 73% of the letters were positive. San Francisco ranks second in reported AIDS cases. KRON and the advertiser are contributing $25,000 each to AIDS research.

KRON, whose announcement Jan. 15 that it would air condom commercials made national headlines, also is the first station in the nation--and so far the only one--to air them in prime time. Its Trojan ad first appeared at 8 p.m. last Tuesday, following Tom Brokaw’s wrap-up of President Reagan’s State of the Union address.

“The only exclusion we’re making is that we will not schedule these ads in or around programs primarily directed at children 12 years of age or under,” General Manager James H. Smith said. “That opens up a pretty wide spectrum of time.”

“I think if broadcasters in the country query their audiences on the public health issue, they will be surprised what they learn. Attitudes have changed because of it.”

In Indianapolis, WRTV, the ABC affiliate owned by McGraw-Hill, aired its condom commercial during “Nightline” after midnight Thursday. Executives at the station were not available for comment about audience reaction. But at the Indianapolis Star-News, Assistant City Editor Tom Leyden noted last weekend: “We haven’t picked up any reaction. It’s pretty strange. Usually people call us at the drop of a moral ripple.”

Still, there is skittishness on the subject of condom commercials. The three networks give no indication that they are ready to change policy and air them. CBS and NBC cite “moral or religious” sensitivities of many viewers, while ABC says the ads are “inappropriate” for a significant portion of its audience.

The network triumvirate, noting that the matter is constantly under review, adds that AIDS prevention is treated in news and public service broadcasting, with CBS further explaining that it also deals with sensitive subjects in programs such as “Cagney & Lacey” and “Kate & Allie.” A CBS spokesman added: “Many of our affiliates say that if we took them (condom ads), they wouldn’t play them.”

Indeed, several broadcast groups and stations that are now airing or who favor airing the ads, allow that they had made the decision in-house last December or even earlier. It was KRON’s mid-January announcement that sparked public discussion of the condom-ad issue, which was further fueled the following week at the convention of the National Assn. of Television Program Executives in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, the condom advertisers, manufacturers and their publicists are working hard to sell their message--and cassettes.

Ruder, Finn & Rotman, the public relations firm handling the Trojan account, lists 67 stations, network affiliates and independents, as well as six cable networks which have “contacted Trojan or otherwise appear favorably inclined to accept Trojan advertising.”

Denver, among other markets, was blanketed with cassettes. All five of Denver’s television stations--three affiliates and two independents--are on the Trojan list, although several executives specifically stated they hadn’t asked to see the ads.

Along with four versions of 15-second Trojan ad cassettes came a letter from the Ted Bates advertising agency and an enclosed self-addressed, stamped post card checking off “Accept” or “Reject.”

On Friday, Roger Ogden, president of KCNC-TV, the NBC affiliate owned by General Electric, promised a decision this week on whether to air. He found “nothing inherently objectionable about the ads,” but said he wanted to consult with others in the industry, within the company and with other NBC affiliates. “We have a fairly conservative community. . . . “

Robert L. White, vice president and general manager of KMGH, said he was still reviewing, noting that McGraw-Hill stations will have “autonomy to judge (community) sensibilities.”

Ken Tonning, vice president and general sales manager at KUSA, owned by Gannett, said that while “the ads are well done, well done . . . we need some time before we randomly change policy.”

John Suder, vice president and general manager at Denver’s KWGN, an independent station, said late Friday afternoon that he rejected all four ads on the basic ground that he didn’t like the phrase “ ‘all the right reasons’ because that seems to be a moral or social comment.” But he doesn’t reject the concept of condom ads. “There’s a major social issue in America. You catch AIDS and you die.”

Terry Brown, vice president and general manager at KDVR, an independent station, said: “If it’s tastefully done, I will run the ads. It really depends on the quality and how controversial it is.”

On behalf of LifeStyles, Allen Clark, executive vice president of Della Femina, Travisano and Partners, took their 30-second commercial to the offices of Laurence Tisch, president and chief executive of CBS, just before Christmas. “While he didn’t promise us anything,” Clark said, “he basically said he felt the broadcasting industry and the networks in particular really had to recognize they had a certain responsibility in dealing with this issue. . . .

“He (Tisch) said, ‘Tell me when you run it on air somewhere. We’ll track it, then give you our opinion.’ ”

Lou Brenner, senior vice president for Ancell-Americas, the LifeStyles manufacturer, figures that the airing of condom ads will work its way from the bottom up--from independents and network affiliates to stations owned and operated by the networks and finally to the networks themselves.