Alter Calls for Boycott of ABC Family

Published August 30, 2005

By C. W. Oberleitner

Last week, responding to a statement from cable channel ABC Family saying that it was contractually bound to carry televangelist Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter called for ABC Family to stop hiding behind "legalisms" and said that "the best answer" to the Disney-owned cable channel's statement would be a "boycott" by viewers.

Airing America

Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter is a regular guest on Air America's The Al Franken Show. On Wednesday, August 24, speaking while on vacation from his home in Montclair, New Jersey, Alter accused cable channel ABC Family of hiding behind "legalisms" in hopes of riding out a controversy created earlier in the week by televangelist Pat Robertson.

On Monday, August 22, during a broadcast of the The 700 Club, Robertson called on the United States government to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The 700 Club, produced by Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), is broadcast daily on ABC Family at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 p.m., and 2:00 a.m. EDT. Robertson and the CBN once owned The Family Channel, which was renamed ABC Family after the Walt Disney Company, in 2001, acquired what was then known as Fox Family.

On Tuesday, a statement released by ABC Family said that it "strongly rejects" Robertson's call for the assassination of Chavez. In response to calls for the cancellation of the The 700 Club, however, ABC Family said that under the terms of Robertson's sale of the channel, the program can never be removed from the schedule without Robertson's agreement. ABC Family referred all further calls to the CBN.

"I'd like to get your reaction to something," said Franken show co-host Katherine Lanpher to Alter during Wednesday's broadcast. "And that is that Jesse Jackson has said that if the flash of Janet Jackson's breast could prompt an FCC investigation of something that was wrong and on the airwaves, surely the call for the assassination of a foreign leader should initiate an FCC investigation."

"Well, I don't like (it) and I'm kind of a First Amendment purist," Alter responded. "I really don't like the government telling the people what to broadcast one-way or the other. So, I'm not for an FCC investigation of this. But what I am for is ABC, the ABC Family network, stopping this hiding behind legalisms when they say that they can't take The 700 Club off the air because they're contractually obligated to Fox, which I guess was the original owner of Robertson's show, to continue to air it.

"Those contracts are all written in such a way that they (ABC Family) can put on or take off (the air) whatever they want. So, this is just a line that they've… put in place in order to get through this news cycle, and it's clearly untrue unless that's the strangest network contract I've ever seen."

Following a brief exchange with show host Al Franken, during which both Alter and Franken agreed that neither had ever heard of a contract that would prohibit a network from canceling a program, Alter retuned to his response to Lanpher's question.

"So the best answer, Katherine, at this point, is a boycott of the ABC Family network 'til they yank Pat Robertson."

"Boycotts," Alter continued, "unlike government censorship or FCC involvement or whatever, are perfectly principled efforts by consumers to use their economic muscle to force change. And, this clearly is a case…" At this point, Franken interrupted Alter for a commercial break.

Air America Radio is a self-described "liberal radio network and program syndication service." The Al Franken Show bills itself as "three hours a day of fearlessly irreverent commentary, comedy, and interviews."

Some of Franken's listeners say that they take most of what they hear on the former Saturday Night Live comic's show with a big grain of salt, never really knowing if what they're hearing is satire or commentary or a mixture of both.

Coming as it did during the end of the summer vacation season, o-meon.com was unable to locate anyone for comment who heard last Wednesday's Al Franken Show. Fans of the broadcast, however, were quick to point out that while Franken regulars like Alter and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant are "looser" when on the Franken show, their remarks are still just as well informed and researched as their printed commentaries.

ABC Family and the Walt Disney Company did not respond to email requests for comment.

[There is a link to a recording of last Wednesday' Al Franken Show at the end of this article.—Editor]

The Deal of the Decade

In 2001, the Walt Disney Company acquired cable channel Fox Family, which at the time was jointly owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and entertainment industry entrepreneur Haim Saban. Disney paid more than $5 billion in cash and debt assumption along with a money-loosing, major-league baseball contract for Fox Family. It also assumed the previous owner's commitment to continue three daily broadcasts of The 700 Club.

Prior to the sale of Fox Family, programmers often complained about The 700 Club. Robertson's stipulation that Fox Family, and any subsequent owner, run his show made establishing a coherent programming strategy a virtual impossibility.

"Fox Family was doomed from the start because it's very hard to be [programmed for] kids all day and have The 700 Club in the middle of your daytime lineup, and then in prime time at 11 p.m.," a former executive said. It was fair to say that the audience for The 700 Club differed dramatically from the one sought by Fox Family programmers.

Fox Family executives tried repeatedly but failed to buy out the commitment to air Robertson's show.

The Disney Company passed on a 1997 opportunity to acquire Fox Family when then CEO Michael Eisner objected to the channel's ongoing commitment to carry the religious/political talk show The 700 Club. At the time, Robertson was a supporter of a boycott of all things Disney, called for by evangelical and fundamentalist Christian leaders.

Among other things, conservative Christian leaders objected to the Disney Company's policy of granting domestic partner benefits to unmarried employees, and its refusal to bar Gay and Lesbian groups from holding Gay Day mix-in events at Disney theme parks in Anaheim and Orlando.

Robertson was still a critic of Disney Company practices when Eisner and company completed the purchase of Fox Family. Through a spokesman, the CBN said it was optimistic about the acquisition of Fox Family by Disney. "Disney has a tremendous library of family programs, which will help the viewership of the new ABC Family channel and ultimately benefit The 700 Club."

Robertson (seated far right) and on camera members of his 700 Club.
Image courtesy of CBN.

The statement added that the change in ownership would not affect the airing of The 700 Club.

During a press conference following the announcement of the completion of its acquisition of Fox Family, Eisner said Disney would continue to honor the commitment to air The 700 Club and brushed off the notion that a relationship with Robertson was inconsistent with the company's values. He also said Robertson had not been a part of the religious right's largely "ineffective efforts" to protest Disney.

The Disney Company, like Fox Family before it, initially had problems programming the new ABC Family channel, not, however, for the same reasons.

Eisner and Peter Murphy, Disney's strategic planning division head, justified the acquisition of Fox Family based on a plan to use the channel's already-established distribution network to repeat or "repurpose" programming from the Disney-owned ABC television network. There was just one problem. Rebroadcast and syndication rights for most of ABC's evening lineup belonged to each program's production company. Neither Disney nor ABC had secured the right to repurpose the alphabet network's line up of shows prior to acquiring Fox Family.

For its first three years of operation, ABC Family was a channel in search of a format and its commitment to air The 700 Club was the least of its worries. It has only been during the past two seasons that ABC Family has begun to grow an audience of its own.

The question now is: Will that audience remain faithful to ABC Family in the face of increasing calls for it to sever all ties with Robertson and his controversial faith-based talk show?

Referenced Sites

Meet Newsweek Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor and Columnist at MSNBC.com

Jonathan Alter on The Al Franken Show - August 24, 2005 (download required, Alter's comments about Pat Robertson and ABC Family begin at 1:43:20 into the recording)

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Jonathan Alter, Newsweek senior editor and regular contributor on NBC's Today Show and cable news channel MSNBC.
Image courtesy of The Washington Post Writers Group.

Hosts of The Al Franken Show, Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher.
Image courtesy of Air America.