Salon: "Path" ran without commercials because there were no sponsors?

[El Fuego]

From Salon:

ABC has positioned "The Path to 9/11," the highly controversial "docudrama," as a public service, showing it without commercial breaks, much as it did for "Saving Private Ryan" and NBC did for "Schindler's List." But one conservative activist with ties to the film says ABC's motives for running the film commercial-free are not as pure as the network would like people to believe.

Govindi Murty, the co-founder of the Liberty Film Festival, "a forum in the heart of Hollywood for conservative and libertarian filmmakers," has been closely linked with the film. Cyrus Nowrasteh, the film's writer, was the featured speaker at the festival in 2004, and, reportedly after receiving special access from ABC, Murty was the first to publish a review of Nowrasteh's movie. In an e-mail she sent to a listserv, later posted to FreeRepublic.com, a conservative forum, Murty wrote, "'The Path to 9/11' is running with no ads or sponsors, because the left considers it so controversial and no companies have been willing to sponsor it."

ABC originally planned to show the film with "limited commercial interruption." However, the network later announced that it had decided to run it without any commercials at all. Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, told Variety last week that the network "looked at different scenarios (and) talked to possible (advertising) partners, and none of it made sense."

In an interview with Salon, Murty said that was because ABC had not found any viable options for sponsorship. Murty says she heard from sources within the network that "they did approach a number of major companies ... people who would sponsor one night, and they were unable to."

ABC did not respond to requests for comment.

http://salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/09/11/abc/index.html

[acmavm]

1. Corporate America is anything but stupid. And they would have

had to have been stupid to want any part of this bad propaganda fest.

[ClintonTyree]

4. But Corporate America produced The Thing......

in the first place. :shrug: That they'd swallow the cost of this and run it without commercials anyway is a prime example of a Corporation with an agenda. Disney/ABC WANTED this shown, come hell or high water and they didn't care how much it cost them or their shareholders. If I WERE a shareholder of Disney I'd be hopping mad right now and want someone's head on a platter.

[acmavm]

7. Disney is an exception to the rule. There's something seriously

wrong with the people who are running Walt's creation.

I meant anyone who would 'advertise' to the American public. Disney hasn't got anything to sell except itself. It's not selling soda pop, potato chips, automobiles, tampax, ipods, or whatever. An angry public boycotting their products would hurt.

Disney is being run by crackpots with an agenda. Plus the American public will still go to see their movies if they're hyped enough and they're released far enough down the road for the public who did take offense to cool down. (I don't go to movies. Once somebody decided Adam Sandler was a 'star' I was done. No industry that stupid deserves my hard-earned money. If I see a movie it's on cable. And I usually end up turning them off as well.)

[blm]

5. I think the big corporations prefer quieter forms of manipulating the

public towards fascism, and don't want to attach their names to something so BLATANTLY one-sided for their favored party.

[rfranklin]

2. Bad , bad business decision...unless, perhaps, maybe, if there was...

some other motive to throw away millions of dollars in profit?

[El Fuego]

6. It's really odd that that the info comes from the RW...

From someone involved with the film. What's the motivation there? A grudge against ABC?

A smokescreen for the money trail?

:shrug:

(Or more likely to perpetuate the RW paranoid fantasy about left wing control.)

[KoKo]

8. Maybe trying to have folks weep for the poor Right Wing that can't get

and help from sponsors to get their product out. It gives Limbaugh & Co. another talking point to try to cover Corporate butts by saying they were so afraid of Liberal Dems boycotting that they didn't want to take a chance with sponsoring.

Would assume it's a lie if it comes from a conservative involed with the film just to get a RW Talking Point out.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. I bet American Airlines turned them down pretty fast!

But seriously, folks... this stinks. It's hard to believe ABC would spend $40 million on this thing and then go, "Oh, damn, we can't get sponsors but we'll run this anyhow as a public service." No way did ABC foot the bill for this this. So who did? Follow the money. I want to know who really paid for this bilge.

[grasswire]

9. if it's true that Horowitz was involved...

...then I think Scaife must be considered. Plus the focus on the Clenis leads us directly to Scaife, don't you think?