Sanders Calls Out CNN for Airing Pharma Commercials During 2020 Debate [View all]

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

“By the way, the healthcare industry will be advertising tonight on this program,” Sanders said after accusing CNN moderator Jake Tapper of deploying “a Republican talking point” against Medicare for All. “They will be advertising tonight with that talking point.”

(snip)

Sure enough, during the debate’s commercial breaks, ads by pharmaceutical giants and industry-backed organizations dominated the airwaves, further vindicating Sanders and other progressives who have raised alarm at the role corporate advertising plays in America’s media coverage.

(snip)

The American Prospect‘s David Dayen noted that, in addition to ads from the pharmaceutical lobby, the debate’s breaks also featured commercials from “the anti-single payer group Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), funded by hospitals and drug companies, and an Alzheimer’s disease patient advocacy group that takes major funding from drug companies.”

“The unfiltered 90 seconds of three of these commercials in succession comprised more screen time than anything in the debate about money in politics,” Dayen wrote. “The country cannot afford to have CNN creating the proscenium through which America gets informed.”

(snip)

https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-calls-out-cnn-for-airing-pharma-commercials-during-2020-debate/

TV’s latest emerging hit takes all the thrills of a traditional reality competition program and mixes in an awful lot of drama.

It’s not a knock-off of “American Idol” or a new MTV series. Instead, it’s something that might be best compared to a Sunday public-affairs program laced with amphetamine.

CNN is seeking exponentially high prices for ad packages set to run in its broadcast of two debates among Democratic presidential hopefuls next week, according to a person familiar with the matter. The AT&T-owned cable-news outlet is requires a commitment of $300,000 in advertising on the network before a potential sponsor can purchase commercials within the two debate telecasts. The minimum requirement is pegged at around $300,000, according to a person familiar with the matter, while a 30-second spot airing in the debates is seen costing around $110,000. A 30-second ad in CNN’s primetime programs has over the last few months cost between $7,000 and $12,000, according to SQAD MediaCosts.

(snip)

“There is significant demand around our debates,” says Katrina Cukaj. an executive vice president of ad sales at WarnerMedia, the AT&T unit that houses CNN. “There are some really intense storylines that came out of that [previous] debate. I think the curiosity around those storylines is at a peak,” she says, referring to a clash between former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris, slated to meet again during CNN’s second-day telecast. She adds: “I will tell you, we are nearly sold out. We’ve got a couple of pending accounts still in there, but we are going to be done pretty much any day now.” She declined to offer a specific cost for advertising during the event.

(snip)

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/cnn-democratic-debate-tv-commercials-news-1203278418/

Got inherent conflicts of interest?