Madison Avenue Seems Wary of Samantha Bee’s ‘Full Frontal,’ Despite Apology
Samantha Bee served up plenty of jokes on Wednesday night. Many advertisers weren’t there to help her in her quest.
The first broadcast of Bee’s TBS series “Full Frontal” after she sparked a controversy last week contained far fewer national commercials than it normally does, a signal that Madison Avenue find the comedienne too hot to support a week after she used a charged epithet that refers to a part of the female anatomy to insult President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. The Time Warner-owned cable network filled the commercial breaks of her program largely with promos for other programs on TBS and TNT, such as “Drop The Mic,” “Claws,” and “Conan.” Only a small handful of national ads for PlayStation; the Warner Brothers movie “Ocean’s 8”; the Epix cable series “Deep State”; and the latest entry in the Univeral Pictures “Jurassic World”series accompanied this week’s broadcast of the program.
In contrast, the first commercial break alone in last week’s “Full Frontal” broadcast contained commercials from Orkin, Yum Brands’ Taco Bell, Apple, Nestle’s Haagen Dazs, and Suntory Holdings’ Jim Beam.
Bee and TBS issued apologies last week for her use of the word, and she opened this week’s program with more of the same, adding some of her humor into the mix. “I crossed the line. I regret it and I do apologize for that,” Bee said, noting: “The problem is, that many of women have heard that word at the worst moments in their lives. A lot of women don’t want to reclaim that word. They want it gone and I don’t blame them. I don’t want to inflict more pain on them.” She added: ” I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest and’I never intended to hurt anyone – except Ted Cruz.” During the show, she introduced a group of four white men who she said would monitor standards on the program. They proceeded to interrupt her during the show’s first segment. “Full Frontal” made other sly references to the controversy, including bleeping out words in the show’s introduction and a farewell from Bee that told viewers she would “See you next….Wednesday.”
In an era riven by debates over politics and cultural issues, advertisers run greater risk of offending some part of their consumer base by aligning themselves with “hot potato” programming. More sponsors are opting to simply sit things out until controversies cool – if they ever do. Laura Ingraham’s Fox News Channel program “The Ingraham Angle” appeared this week to have gained back some but not all of its advertiser support, months after its host came under fire for insulting one of the survivors of a horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida on Twitter in March. Marketers also shied away from a June broadcast last year of NBC’s “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly” that contained an interview with online provocateur Alex Jones.
More to come….
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