Under Review

AD OUT You need more than a fat wallet to get an ad on the Super
Bowl telecast. Last week the network rejected a 30-second spot
critical of the Bush Administration's budget policy that the
activist group MoveOn.org wanted to run during the big game. The
ad, titled "Child's Pay," depicts young children working as
dishwashers, maids and garbage collectors, and it ends with the
line, "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion
deficit?" MoveOn.org, a grassroots organization funded mainly by
donations, was ready to pay the roughly $2 million fee for the
spot, which has already begun airing on CNN, but CBS said no,
citing a long-standing policy of not accepting "advocacy ads."
Although as of Monday the network still had ad slots available
for its Big Game coverage, "this ad will never air on CBS," says
executive vice president Marty Franks. "It has nothing to do with
the Super Bowl."

Still, the rejection marked the second time in as many weeks that
a progressive message has been shunted off the Big Game. Earlier
this month the NFL declined U2 frontman Bono's request to perform
his song An American Prayer, which deals with the AIDS crisis in
Africa, during the halftime show, saying they didn't think it was
appropriate for a performance "to focus on a single issue."

AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T SHOW HEIDI Tough break for ESPN, which
didn't air Michelle Wie's attempt to make the cut on the 18th
hole in the second round of the Sony Open last Friday. (Needing
an eagle, she birdied and missed by a stroke.) Although it
extended its coverage by an hour, to 10:30 p.m. EST, ESPN was
obliged by its NBA contract to switch to the Lakers-Kings tip-off
just minutes before Wie's final hole. ESPN2 was already showing a
Matt Vanda-Sam Garr junior middleweight bout on Friday Night
Fights.

--D.G.H.