Disney is once again turning away from being apolitical. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney has caved on allowing political ads to run on Hulu due to “criticism after rejecting ads related to abortion and gun safety from Democratic groups.” Now they will allow political ads to be placed on the streaming service. Personally, I think Disney can’t pass up the money given they are estimating huge advertisement spends this election.
A Disney representative gave this statement to the Hollywood Reporter:
“After a thorough review of ad policies across its linear networks and streaming platforms over the last few months, Disney is now aligning Hulu’s political advertising policies to be consistent with the Company’s general entertainment and sports cable networks and ESPN+. Hulu will now accept candidate and issue advertisements covering a wide spectrum of policy positions, but reserves the right to request edits or alternative creative, in alignment with industry standards.”
So if Disney is in fact changing their position due to pushback (likely from Twitter) then are they actually going to run the “wide spectrum of policy positions” or are they going to cave to complaints again and only run one side of the issues?
Why do companies like Disney keep caving to the mobs on Twitter anyway?
THR said that the pushback was from “groups aligned with Democrats after it rejected ads related to abortion and gun safety. The ads, from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Governors Association” after ads were rejected for this specific platform but were allowed to run on other ones like ABC and ESPN.
Personally I preferred to not be slammed with political ads on Hulu, and I’m sure many consumers would agree. Given the volitile state of things and the issues Disney has faces as it’s become more and more polarized, one would think they would stay out of this. But Disney is notoriously money hungry right now so I think it has more to do with that than a #boycottHulu hashtag.
Thank goodness we don’t have ad supported Disney+ yet. If the money was right these ads would likely end up on there too.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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