AFA Warns Sponsors to Separate From 'Desperate Housewives'
by Allie Martin
February 24, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A pro-family media watchdog group has announced it will monitor advertisers on ABC's popular program "Desperate Housewives" and plans to call for a yearlong boycott of the series' sponsors. One MillionMoms.com will be monitoring weekly episodes of "Housewives" during the months of April, May and June to identify which companies sponsor the show. After compiling the list of advertisers, OneMillionMoms.com will launch a year-long boycott of one or more of the leading "Desperate Housewives" sponsors.
OneMillionMoms.com and the related website OneMillionDads.com are projects of the American Family Association (AFA), which seeks through the Internet groups to mobilize grassroots family values consumers to speak out against media indecency and take organized action to combat it. AFA Chairman Don Wildmon says "Desperate Housewives" has been targeted by OneMillionMoms.com because of the show's extreme content.
Wildmon calls the show "one of the trashiest programs on television." He says, "Many people consider it to be the most offensive, so we decided to take on the worst of the worst."
AFA's founder and chairman intends to let advertisers know they are taking a risk by sponsoring the program. "Doing this will cost ABC millions of dollars," he says. "If advertisers know that the program is going to be monitored and that they're going to be identified with that program, they're going to be less inclined to run their ads on that program."
Some people have said to pro-family viewers who dislike indecent network TV programming simply to turn it off, Wildmon notes. In response, he asks, "Why should we have to do that? Why do our children need to be exposed to such trash? Why do the networks keep putting out trash?
Also, the pro-family spokesman wants to know, will critics of the OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com campaigns against media indecency next tell pro-family viewers "that if we don't like drunk drivers on the highway, to stay off the highway?"
Wildmon notes that, according to ABC, "Desperate Housewives" is viewed by 15 million people weekly. What that means, he says, is that 265 million people do not watch the show but still end up paying for it by purchasing its sponsors' products.
American Family Association has more than two million online supporters. Wildmon hopes to turn the power of those and other pro-family consumers against the companies that sponsor "Desperate Housewives," in hopes of convincing them to pull their advertising dollars from the show.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
