Advertisers Bow Out of TV Show on Forests

A National Audubon Society television special on the forests of the Northwest will be shown without commercials after nine companies bowed to pressure from loggers and yanked their advertising, Turner Broadcasting System Inc. said Friday.

Turner Broadcasting declined to release the names of the companies, but they included Ford Motor Co., Dean Witter Reynolds, which was advertising its Discover Card, and Stroh Brewery.

Earlier this month, Stroh withdrew its underwriting of the Audubon Society’s television series after Northwest loggers threatened to quit drinking that brand of beer.

“Due to concerted and apparently organized pressure from the timber industry, many of the advertisers scheduled for the upcoming ‘World of Audubon’ special, ‘Ancient Forests: Rage Over Trees,’ have canceled their commercials for that time period,” Turner Broadcasting said in a statement released in Atlanta.

The timber industry and environmentalists have been locked in a bitter struggle for months over the future of logging in the virgin forests of the Northwest, which provide prime habitat for the rare northern spotted owl.

The Audubon Society is among the environmental groups that have sought to have the owl protected as a threatened or endangered species and logging in the old-growth forests halted.

“National Audubon will never be intimidated by timber industry bullying,” said Peter Berle, Audubon Society president.

TV REVIEW: Part V, Page 11