Van de Kamp (VDK) has become the 37th company to withdraw sponsorship of the ABC show, “Nothing Sacred.” There was an ad for a VDK product, Mama Celeste pizza, on last Saturday night’s show; the ad was mistakenly placed by VDK’s ad agency.
Those who previously quit 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, John Paul Mitchell Systems, Meineke, Fantom Technologies Direct, A&M Products, Nissan, RadioShack, Chattem, International Home Foods and Levitz.
William Donohue issued the following statement on #37:
“Van de Kamp is a model business: it specifically told its ad agency not to advertise on ‘Nothing Sacred.’ When the agency mistakenly did so (in the New York market), the company jumped on the situation immediately and corrected the error. Van de Kamp has said that it is ‘extremely upset’ about what happened and ‘deeply regrets’ this mishap. The Catholic League is exceedingly grateful to Van de Kamp for their honesty and integrity.
“Well, folks, the ratings are in from last week. Once again, it’s time for the Disney/ABC gang to read ‘em and weep: the show bombed again. Now Kevin Anderson is saying that the lousy ratings are due to its 8:00 p.m. time slot. He says ‘this is the kind of show where you’ve got to put the kids to bed [boy, is that telling!], you’ve got to have the dishes washed, you’ve got to sit back on the couch. You can’t be frying eggs….’ So when the show fails in its new slot on Saturday’s at 9:00 p.m. in March, we’ll hear that viewers are too bombed at that hour, having fallen asleep on the couch. He’ll be right in this assessment, but for reasons he’ll never figure out.”
