Taking aim at the advertisers

Don Wildmon was ready to come out swinging. With Turn the Television Off Week underway and the name National Federation for Decency (NFD) being heard by the press for the first time (See The Stand, 7/25.), Don wanted to introduce another word into the public discourse over television. It was the word boycott.

While boycotts would come to be a common tool of the NFD and AFA throughout the decades, initially, Don didn’t want to use them at all. He had hoped that reasonable discussion with network executives would prove fruitful. However, in the lead-up to the TV-turnoff campaign, he consulted with numerous media professionals about the inner workings of the television industry. Don was quickly convinced he was going to need something stronger than a simple appeal to decency to get through to the people in charge.

“The networks and advertisers will not take our concern for quality television seriously until it is reflected in their pocketbooks,” Don wrote in a 1977 NFD newsletter.

Still, he was hopeful that the threat might spur legitimate discussion with network officials about indecent programming and corporate responsibility.

The boycotts begin

At the first NFD press conference at Southaven (Mississippi) United Methodist Church on March 1, 1977, Don announced that he would be organizing a boycott of NBC. He was not yet ready to name a particular advertiser as an added target; he would give NBC an opportunity to respond first. But he had compiled a list of NBC’s top program sponsors and was ready to pick one, if talks collapsed.

The terms of the boycott were quite simple: Viewers would avoid NBC programming throughout the next month and a half. NBC would be given until April 15, 1977, to agree to return its programming to the standards outlined in The Television Code. Should the network agree to that, then the viewer boycott would be lifted, and the network would have until January 1, 1978, to adjust their programming accordingly. If NBC were to fail to meet this demand, any company that was advertising on NBC could become subject to a yearlong, nationwide boycott.

While all three networks were guilty of indecency, NBC was not chosen at random. Back in February, in the month leading up to Turn the Television Off Week, Don conducted a one-week TV monitoring effort. He enlisted 30 church volunteers to watch prime-time TV and make note of all objectionable content as well as the advertisers on the programs.

With that limited snapshot of network content, Don had enough data for two major takeaways: 1) More extensive TV monitoring would need to be a key feature of the NFD’s future work, and 2) NBC easily had the most violent programming.

The biggest culprits of perpetuating TV violence were police-themed shows such as Police Story, Police Woman, Serpico, and the Sunday Mystery Movie, as reported by The Tennessean in April 1977. NBC’s wartime drama, Baa Baa Black Sheep, was so violent that rival network CBS had already filed a complaint with code officials in October 1976, saying the first two episodes “exploit violence, glorify excessive drinking, and condone dubious moral standards,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Beyond the violence, it was also no secret that NBC was the lowest network in the ratings. Don believed this made it the most vulnerable to economic pressure.

“By turning off NBC, we can accomplish our goal,” Don told the Memphis Press-Scimitar, “because advertisers will not want to spend their money on a network that is not being watched.”

NBC responds

NBC’s response to the threatened boycott was swift. George Hoover, vice president of press relations, rejected Don’s assertion that the network had strayed from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Television Code.

According to the Commercial Appeal, “Not only do we subscribe to the code,” Hoover insisted, “but we have a department of standards and practices that is very involved in policing the airwaves.”

Hoover also claimed that the network – quite independently of Don’s complaints – was already in the process of “taking a very hard look at violence” and addressing it in future programming.

Curt Block, NBC’s director of press and publicity, was even more forthright: “NBC does not have any plans to revert to a 1952 NAB code,” he told the Chicago Tribune.

“We have our own code of standards. We feel as though our editors and the NBC corporation are very responsible,” Block added in an article published by the Memphis Press-Scimitar.

Don had heard enough. He didn’t have to wait until April 15 for a response. NBC obviously wasn’t taking him seriously.

An advertiser is named

So, on March 11, Don named Campbell’s Soup as the NBC advertiser to boycott. Since Campbell’s was easily identifiable in the marketplace and in the top 10 advertisers of violence, Don believed it a suitable target to get the message across. He sent 2,500 flyers to people who had contacted him concerned about TV violence, encouraging them to join the boycott.

He also began putting together the first NFD Newsletter to be sent out in May. The multipage letter contained details about the NBC/Campbell’s Soup boycott, the full results of February’s TV monitoring project, a request for volunteers for the next monitoring cycle, a guide to setting up a local NFD chapter, a guide to fighting newsstand pornography, and a couple of articles about other types of obscene material in the marketplace. As would be typical of the NFD’s flagship publication, it was no fluff – packed with information and opportunities for action.

The NFD’s efforts were questioned immediately.

NBC claimed Don had his finger on the scale of the monitoring results.

“If Marie Osmond gives Donny Osmond a cheerful poke in the side, that’s counted as an act of violence equivalent to somebody being shot,” Block told the Memphis Press-Scimitar. “We question the methodology used in that survey.”

Channel 5 (WMC-TV) in Memphis, Tennessee, purchased a special TV viewing survey to try and prove that Turn the Television Off Week was ineffective in the Memphis area. The Jackson (Tennessee) Sun asserted that boycotting Campbell’s Soup “misses the point and is an ugly suggestion of equally mindless censorship.” Other outlets simply said the boycotts were pointless and ineffective.

An approach is solidified

Despite the attacks on Don’s credibility, the boycott was over almost before it began. Campbell’s Soup responded promptly, and by July, the company had changed its TV advertising policy.

It would now take a closer look at violent content when making its sponsorship choices.

The quick victory helped solidify the NFD’s approach of boycotting program sponsors.

“I had learned that television simply wasn’t going to get any better until the viewing public could communicate its disgust to a major sponsor,” Don later wrote in his book The Man the Networks Love to Hate.

He let the NBC boycott fade away, putting his time into preparing for the TV monitoring project he would be undertaking that fall.

The first skirmish had been important but was also somewhat forgettable. The NFD didn’t trumpet the victory. Don never discussed the details. He simply moved on. But the burden of God calling him to this kind of work didn’t let up. In fact, it only intensified.