After only three episodes, NBC's "The Playboy Club" has gotten the axe from network executives, and the company has been spinning the explanation that it had tough competition in "Monday Night Football" and the like.
Don't believe it, says an analyst.
Morality in Media Executive Director Dawn Hawkins says the real reason was pressure from the advertisers, who heard from the public.
"It is very likely that pressure on the advertisers had a great impact. Out of NBC's top five usual advertisers, four refused to run ads and after the second episode, the fifth company, Ford, had pulled theirs as well," Hawkins said.
"About 12 companies in total stopped their ads and by this last episode, NBC was running more ads for their own network shows than previously," Hawkins said.
Television critics say the pink slip was given to the show's producers because it was either a bad programming decision from the start or it was the victim of a bad time slot.
But Hawkins said the public played a solid role in the decision.
"The news is spinning this as it was just because the show was written poorly, was up against Monday Night Football, etc – but I can tell you there was an outpouring of support for our efforts and those of other groups like Parent's Television Council," Hawkins said.
"Over 20,000 emails were sent in the last three weeks to advertising companies from our website, www.closetheclubonnbc.com. Also, I think it's safe to say that part of the reason the show didn't draw a crowd, despite the millions of dollars NBC spent on promoting it, is because the average person still just finds this type of theme indecent," Hawkins added.
Hawkins says the sad thing is how the network attempted to justify the program even after the pressure began.
"The network always responded with the same lines, 'This is a sophisticated show that depicts women in a good light.' They were standing behind the show 100 percent," Hawkins said.
Florida Family Association President David Caton says that his group organized a letter and publicity campaign, aimed from the ground up.
"I think it was a combination of ratings and the fact that you probably had more pro-family groups going after this show than any other show in recent years," Caton said. "I know there were five organizations that were targeting advertisers."
Caton says his group first took note of which companies advertised on the program.
"We targeted advertisers a little bit differently. We took the leading advertiser which was Chrysler Fiat from the leading episode and we loaded up our database to include viewership," Caton said.
The database then generated a letter to company executives.
"We wrote every company that advertized through our show stopper's system. We had software we designed years ago that sends an email automatically to the president and marketing vice president of companies we've entered into the system for a show," Caton said.
Caton says the next step was a bottom-to-top operation.
"You get local advertisers to start pulling their ad dollars from the local NBC affiliates and those affiliates go crazy because they're taking $5,000 or $6,000 checks a night for a few minutes," Caton said.
"We got several local companies to go their local affiliates and said, 'We don't want to be on this program,'" Caton said.
That generated a groundswell of pressure that eventually got the attention of the network executives in New York and Los Angeles.
Morality in Media official Lesley Bateman adds that there was significant pressure from both socially conservative and liberal sectors.
"We believe that NBC 'Closed the Club' as a result of dismal ratings and viewer outrage, over the series that glorified the sexual exploitation of women and the Playboy philosophy that women are to be used, abused and then discarded," Bateman said.
"The efforts of Morality in Media, Parent's Television Council, Gloria Steinem and many others led to the public outrage and ultimate cancellation of the show," Bateman said.
Bateman says her organization isn't going to stop with simply getting programs cancelled, they want to target pornographers as well.
"We'll use the same public pressure that closed the club to get the attention of the U.S. Justice Department which has not prosecuted one case against pornographers during the current administration. You can follow our efforts at waronillegalpornography.com," Bateman said.
Caton says movies and programs like the Playboy Club and biographies of Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione and Larry Flynt usually receive low ratings.
Hawkins believes the explanation is not in the low ratings. She believes the networks and studios are continuing to test the waters.
"Pornography is so rampant in our society and unfortunately is becoming more and more accepted. Luckily, for now, the general public still has higher standards of decency," Hawkins said.
"As we become more and more numb to pornography, because it is so widespread, shows like that will be of interest. It seems like the porn industry and proponents of indecency like to keep checking to see where we stand and what they can get away with – they will keep pushing the envelope until we cave in," Hawkins said.
Caton believes that he also believes network executives have a dark obsession.
"I believe that if you look somewhere in the upper-level management and the shareholders of the companies involved, that you will find personality interests and fetishes with regards to the flavor of the programs," Caton said.
"Comcast also owns the Entertainment Channel and we got over 500 companies to stop advertising on 'Playboy's Girls Next Door,' on the Entertainment Channel," Caton said.
"But Comcast continued even after we had gotten to where only 30 percent of their ad time was even paid ad time, and that was from Snap-On Feathers and weird products," Caton said.
"I just think that they have a blind fetish towards, and in this particular case, Comcast, has a blind fetish towards this type of programming and they don't care," Caton said.
Comcast has not responded to WND's request for comment.
WND earlier reported on the Playboy Club program's poor start.
In its first week, the Playboy Club program only scored a 1.6 rating among adults in the 18-49 age group.