Turn Off Fox

Filed in National by on October 19, 2010

The Color of Change have set themselves a new goal — getting people to ask businesses and others with public TVs to encourage businesses and other public places to Turn Off Fox. CoC has been remarkably effective in getting most of Glenn Beck’s advertisers to abandon ship, and no they want places who leave FOX up on the TV to become Fox Free. So go over there and sign the petition, and get yourself a Turn Off Fox sticker for your car. And for those of you who scoff at this — I’m often in public places that have Fox News on the TV. I routinely ask the proprietor to chance the station and have NEVER been turned down — so do know that lots of business people (especially now) are going to be sensitive to the requests of paying customers.

But if you need more incentive, check out this amazing letter from the CEO of the Tides (the group targeted for violence by the wingnut who said he was inspired by Beck) to Fox’s advertisers. A small bit (but you should read the whole thing — it is brilliant):

I am writing to ask your company to take a simple step that may well save lives in the future. And it is not unimportant that taking this action will remove your company and its products from any connection to what could very likely be an unpleasant tragedy, should things remain as they are today. On behalf of my organization, and many others like it, I ask that you cease advertising on the Fox News Channel.

This is neither a hollow request, nor one rhetorically made. There is an urgency to it born of our own direct experience as the target of a would-be assassin inspired by Fox’s Glenn Beck Show.

So sign the petition, proudly display your sticker and pass the word on to your friends too….

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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

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  1. Reduce Noise Pollution « From Pine View Farm | October 20, 2010
  1. anon says:

    Good project.

    “taking this action will remove your company and its products from any connection to what could very likely be an unpleasant tragedy”

    Bad wording. Sounds like an extortion note. I bet the wingnut blogs are already quoting it out of context.

    Turning off FOX is fine, but if you want to hit them where it hurts (share price), you have to stop sending money to FOX. Cancel Comcast and FIOS-TV, or downgrade to a package that doesn’t include FOX.

    Yes you can go without your premium cable channels. You will get smarter, reconnect with your family and friends, and lose weight too.

  2. Geezer says:

    HItting them where it hurts is boycotting their advertisers. Is there a web site that lists them?

    anon: Cutting Fox would also mean cutting BBC World News and the extra C-SPAN channels. Not interested.

  3. anon says:

    I don’t know how much revenue FOX gets in cable fees vs. advertiser revenue, but I assume losing a portion of either would seriously hurt them.

    In any case, I find it a hell of a lot easier to boycott one cable company than to boycott all their advertisers.

  4. Geezer says:

    And I find that cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’d rather hit the corporate sponsors than Murdoch.

  5. anon says:

    Cutting Fox would also mean cutting BBC World News and the extra C-SPAN channels. Not interested.

    That is a slender excuse for funding FOX.

    BBC World News is available live on radio, and with archived video on the Internet. All the C-SPAN channels are available on the Internet.

    Of course, it would be a much easier call if we had a la carte cable TV.

  6. anon says:

    Also remember, FOX’s advertising rates are based on its number of subscribers. So don’t be one.

  7. cassandra m says:

    I don’t know if there is a list of sponsors yet. When CoC was asking Beck’s advertisers to jump off of that ship, they used their petition to go to advertisers individually to ask them to stop advertising on Beck. He wasn’t left with very many advertisers.

    But that didn’t much change the overall add buy on Fox by these companies — they asked to have their rotations changed so the ads did not appear on Beck. Now CoC wants to get the money off of Fox, period.

  8. a. price says:

    So if the all powerful Free Market, blessing of money and wealth be unto HIM, starts to attack fox, will the Teabags argue for government intervention and regulation in advertising? Or will they simply demand the government pays for news channels to exist?

  9. Scrugs says:

    So silence those with whom we disagree. Yea, that sounds about right coming from you. They don’t deserve to make a living because you disagree with their politics. What a noble cause. So any business owner that disagrees with us politically should be very careful what they have on TV or what they say or what they think. Because if we don’t like it, we are going to run them out of business…no matter how good their product is or how honest they might be.

    ARE YOU SERIOUS!?

    “CoC has been remarkably effective in getting most of Glenn Beck’s advertisers to abandon ship…”

    Poor Glen Beck only made $30 plus million last year. Real effective, genius!

    Seriously, I don’t know what is more dumbfounding to me…your hypocrisy or your stupidity.

  10. pandora says:

    Hey, Scrugs, welcome to the free market! I have a right to spend my money where I see fit. For instance, I never order pizza from Domino’s.

    Also, this line made me lol: no matter how good their product is or how honest they might be. Um… we’re talking about FOX.

    Finally, if a company chooses to link their politics to their product, then I have a right to not buy their product. Simple as that.

  11. a. price says:

    silly pandora… the free market only works that way if it is good patriotic conservatives not spending money on evil liberal companies. NOT the other way around…. then you are jsut being marxist.
    Scrugs agrees with me doncha, brother-bag?

  12. anon says:

    So silence those with whom we disagree.

    Nobody is being silenced. When the last subscriber and advertiser has deserted FOX, FOX will still have its Constitutional right to free speech.

  13. cassandra m says:

    They just won’t have any of our money to do it with.

  14. Geezer says:

    “BBC World News is available live on radio, and with archived video on the Internet. All the C-SPAN channels are available on the Internet.”

    I prefer a format I can see without squinting. I’m not interested in TV on a computer. Fox isn’t going to go kaput over my $2 a month.

    “Of course, it would be a much easier call if we had a la carte cable TV.”

    And the zoo would be more interesting if it had unicorns.

  15. anon says:

    I’m not interested in TV on a computer.

    You know, you can plug a computer into a TV these days. There are all kinds of possiblities for watching Internet stuff on your TV.

    Part of the reason I can survive without premium channels is I have a $9/month Netflix subscription that is entirely delivered over the Internet via my Wii – and I watch it on my TV. More movies and TV shows than I can watch.

    Actually it is kind of scaring the cable companies. That is why they are fighting Net neutrality.