Meineke has become the 29th company to drop sponsorship of the ABC show, “Nothing Sacred.” Meineke explained that it never officially sponsored the show, but admitted that one of its ads did appear on the November 13 edition of “Nothing Sacred”; it has notified the company that purchases media time for its ads not to buy time on the show again.
The other companies that have withdrawn their ads are: Isuzu, Weight Watchers, K-Mart, Benckiser, DuPont, Red Lobster, Ocean Spray, Sears, Glaxo Wellcome, Ponderosa, Dunkin’ Donuts, Scott’ s Liquid Gold, Chrysler-Plymouth, Honda, Arm & Hammer, Home Depot, Borden, Alberto Culver, Montgomery Ward, Ovaltine, Dairy Queen, Mutual of Omaha, Telecom*USA, Cigna, McCormick, Pier 1, NordicTrack and John Paul Mitchell Systems.
William Donohue was happy with the news:
“Meineke did what many other companies did: it purchased air time on ABC via its ad agency and never expected any trouble. But once it learned that one of its ads showed up on ‘Nothing Sacred,’ steps were immediately taken to quash the public outrage that was building. In doing so, Meineke assured its consumers of its goodwill.
“Most people probably have no idea what the networks put on TV on a Saturday night, so it wasn’t a bad idea to drop ‘Nothing Sacred’ in the 9 p.m. slot this past Saturday. More good news for Disney/ABC: they certainly succeeded in not offending the Catholic League (we just thought it was a bore). But, alas, not all the news is good. This episode was so soporific that it’s a safe bet that most people never made it beyond the ads for the John Denver CD’s.”
