Restrictions a Barrier for Condom Ads : Television: Only one commercial has aired since Fox agreed to broadcast the spots. AIDS activists want looser rules on content, which now must focus on disease control.

It’s been more than two months since Fox Broadcasting created a storm of publicity as the first broadcast television network to agree to air commercials for prophylactics. But to date the network has aired just one 15-second spot, for Trojan condoms.

Fox executives said that “a few” additional ads have been presented since Trojan, a division of the pharmaceutical giant Carter-Wallace, ran a 15-second spot Nov. 17 during the program “Herman’s Head.” But they said the commercials did not meet the network’s standards, which require that ads for condoms talk generally about their use as a way to slow the spread of AIDS, but not mention any specifics about a particular brand.

“When we made the decision to run condom commercials, we assumed that new ads would be developed,” said Betsey Wagner, Fox vice president for publicity. “Instead, the condom manufacturers rushed forward with existing ads.”

AIDS activists, while hesitant to criticize the only network to agree even in principle to air condom ads, said that the network’s prudishness could cost lives. Fox should loosen its standards, these activists say, and allow more commercials to air.

“The issue and the emergency and the hundreds of thousands of deaths necessitate this flexibility,” said Rene Durazzo, media coordinator for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “It’s time to re-examine the standards you’re asking the condom manufacturers to adhere to, and ask yourselves if those standards are helping to save lives. If they are not helpful in saving lives, then change them.”

Fox agreed to air ads for condoms last fall, saying that the network wanted to do its part to help stem the spread of AIDS and the virus that causes it, HIV. ABC, NBC and CBS have refused to air them at all, saying that individual stations are better equipped to determine whether condom commercials would bring protests from birth-control opponents in their communities.

But Fox is determined to limit spots to those dealing exclusively with disease, Wagner said.

“Some of the ads that people were presenting did not do that,” she said. “People are going to have to come up with new ads to meet those guidelines.”

Some manufacturers say they are doing just that.

Jay Key, an advertising consultant who has been working with Schmid Laboratories, makers of Ramses and Sheik condoms, said that company is developing commercials for a new line of condoms. But the condoms will not debut until April, he said, and the ads are not ready.

Fox’s guidelines were so strict, Key said, that Schmid was asked to change the name of its new product, which was to have been called “Safe Play.” The word play, he said, was deemed unacceptable.

Trojan, which ran the first ad on Fox, would not comment on why the company purchased just one spot, or speculate about future advertisements.

But Trojan marketing director Mark Klein previously told The Times that the company was concerned about being restricted to talking just about disease control, without any mention of why Trojan products would be preferable to a consumer over another brand.

A source who has worked closely with Fox to develop acceptable ways of dealing with safe-sex issues suggested that the network is being cautious because it fears a backlash among conservative religious groups, who oppose condom use for any reason.

Wagner said that the majority of letters Fox has received on its initial decision to allow the ads have been “overwhelmingly positive.” Some negative letters were received, she said, but they did not seem to be part of an organized campaign.

David Mayer, president of Oakland-based Mayer Laboratories, which makes Kimono and Maxx condoms, predicted that even if Fox loosened its standards, there would not be a rush to buy ads.

“You’ve got to have a lot of money to advertise on television, and the condom companies are still too small,” Mayer said. “Carter-Wallace probably did the one Trojan ad for the publicity.”

Indeed, revenues for the nation’s condom manufacturers are estimated to have been between $200 million and $210 million for 1991. By comparison, athletic gear manufacturer Nike spent nearly that amount--$178.8 million--on advertising alone in 1990.

Mayer, who has been concentrating his advertising in newspapers and has bought--in conjunction with a local pharmacy--a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times scheduled for Feb. 27, said it will take hundreds of millions of dollars in TV commercials to effectively spread the word that condoms help prevent AIDS.

“The ‘Just Say No’ campaign was a hell of a lot more expensive (than just a few million dollars), and we still have a drug problem,” Mayer said. “If we want people to change their behavior through advertising, it’s going to take a lot of money.”