lewcherman is okay, but it is his sponsors who have the most power to give him grief. If See-BS really cared about ratings or affiliates, it wouldn’t have the poorly-rated Katie Couric as its prime news anchor.

But threaten their revenue stream, and you will have their undivided attention. If the advertising dollars dry up, that threatens the producers, who have the real power over shows and who gets to host them. Lecherman’s producers would dump him in a NY minute if they thought that not enough sponsors would cought up the millions of dollars that they do to keep programs on the air. To save the program, producers will gladly sacrifice the host.

Here’s some excellent advice on how to target Lecherman’s sponsors from a commenter at HillBuzz:

So, my advice to you and your readers is:

(1) to find the three biggest advertisers Letterman has

(2) focus on advertisers having anything to do with children

(3) identify the entire C-suite of both the advertiser and that particular agency making the commercials

(4) write to every single person on the list you make above at least once a day, and do your level best to fill up their voice mails with POLITE and PROFESSIONAL (no expletives) chastisement on a personal level for giving any pennies to keep that vile pig Letterman on the air

(5) use the Internet to post on every site imaginable the fact that M&M Mars, for instance, sells candy that promotes rape. Talk about how buying peanut M&Ms helps encourage the statutory rape of 14 year-olds in New York. Make a list of all the products made by M&M Mars and send that to every church group, daycare center, high school, etc. that you can find (with copies to the entire C-suite and exec board in (3) above) telling parents that purchasing any of these products puts money into the pocket of a pervert who promotes the rape of young girls like their daughters

(6) Once your boycotts are organized on the local levels, have teams in all cities contact their local news and tell them about what you are doing…invite the news to come out and watch you picket in front of grocery stores (once you obtain the public gathering permits, if needed, of course) to encourage fellow shoppers to boycott all M&M Mars products until they yank their ads from Letterman…in smaller cities, this would be a big news item, as there is often nothing to report in Mineral City, Ohio on days that cats have not gotten stuck in trees

M&M Mars will buckle and pull its support — in about a month, I would guess. Just like Kellogg’s yanked its sponsorship of Michael Phelps once he made headlines not for strokes in the pool, but tokes on his marijuana bong. M&M Mars cannot afford to sell the candies parents could quickly associate with rape….

(More)

http://hillbuzz.org/2009/06/10/how-to-write-to-corporate-america-by-sebastian-gray-for-gray-matters/

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Tell the following people you will no longer be patronizing them so long as they continue to advertise on Letterman:

Mars Candy

Best Western

Embassy Suites

Lexus

Capitol One

eBay

Other advertisers:

TV.Com

On the Border Restaurants

Intel

CBSsports.com

JohnFreida.com

DiTech

Earn My Degree

True Credit by Trans Union

Lifelock

Bowflex

ancestry.com

CBS Contact Info: (212) 975-4321

CBS Executives:

Nina Tassler = nina.tassler@cbs.com

Kelly Kahl = kelly.kahl@cbs.com

Kim Sartori = kim.sartori@cbs.com

Les Moonves = lmoonves@cbs.com

UPDATE: Our advice is to focus on three advertisers:

(1) M&M Mars

(2) Best Western

(3) Embassy Suites

Reason: remember when Michael Phelps was caught with his marijuana bong? Kellogg’s cereal dropped him like a hot potato because its brand image is child-focused for most of its products. Speedo won’t ever drop Phelps, no matter what he does, but we doubt he’ll ever have his face on a McDonald’s happy meal again either.

No candy company will want to be associate with raping 14 year-olds.

And hotel companies are ALWAYS terrified of being associated with rape (which, sadly, happens at hotels more than the casual traveler realizes…with hotels spending a lot of money in PR to mitigate exposure whenever violent criminal acts like that happen on their premises).

Lexus, Capitol One, and the other advertisers might not like being harassed because of their support for Letterman and his misogynistic jokes, but we doubt they’ll drop him because his demographics are too enticing.

BUT, a concerted effort directed at M&M Mars, Best Western, and Embassy Suites could be interesting.

“M&Ms: the candy for people who think rape is super funn!”

“Stay at Best Western so you can stay up late and watch jokes about rape!”

“Embassy Suites: the place you go to watch CBS talk about raping 14 year-olds!”

Now, those should have brand managers racing for the phone if a focus and spirited effort is directed at hammering them each and every day until their ads stop appearing on Letterman’s show and website.

In this economy, a loss of three big advertisers like that will indeed be noticed by CBS.

UPDATE #2: Some advertisers, such as Best Western, are claiming they do not advertise on Late Night with David Letterman. This is apocryphal: Best Western buys banner ad space on CBS.com, and these ads appear on CBS.com when you click on the David Letterman page on that site. Best Western, Aerosoles, Paramount’s new Star Trek movie, and other banner ads pop up on every page of David Letterman’s site. This is paid advertising Best Western and these other companies CHOOSE to buy from CBS.

If you are an advertiser upset people who despise rape and refuse to allow Letterman to get away with promoting the rape of minors in New York, then you need to get on the phone to your ad buy account execs and yank your web ads from CBS.com.

No one believes you do not have the power to do this. If Best Western has agents who can post here, then you have agents who can call your advertising firms and stop giving your money to CBS and David Letterman.

It was consistently reported that WILLOW Palin, 14 years old, was in New York, attending events with her mother. Not 18 year old Bristol.

There is NO EXCUSE for Letterman and his writers to “make the mistake” of attacking “the wrong” Palin daughter.

None.

Just as there is no excuse for Best Western or any other advertiser to justify their support for Letterman by claiming, “we only buy ads online, not on TV”.

Best Western: the hotel to stay in if you love jokes about raping minors!

http://hillbuzz.org/2009/06/10/list-of-david-lettermans-advertisers/

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Listen up, because we’re only going to say this once (before we repeat ourselves again and again like we always do): TODAY WE ARE ALL PALINS.

Have a daughter? Well, how would you feel if a haggard, sick, unfunny pig told millions of people how funny it would be if she was raped and forcibly impregnated? What would you do if he also went on to compare your daughter to one of former Governor Spitzer’s prostitutes?

Have a wife or mother? Well, how would you feel if that same diapered pig, all in the span of just a few moments, called her a slut, denigrated her intelligence, and implied she was a lesbian — all with the full-backing of “The Tiffany Network”, CBS?

Well, the silver’s certainly tarnished in terms of what CBS once was, and what it used to stand for. We gave up on the Late Show years ago when we graduated high school and realized childishness and stupid human tricks weren’t funny, if the central human delivering this “yuck-fest” is a truly stupid human indeed.

Some of you out there have daughters. Some of you are someone else’s daughters. We all have mothers and grandmothers and most of us have aunts and female cousins. We hope you all have female friends. And then there’s guys like us, who won’t sit quietly while David Letterman attacks the Palins in such filthy, disgusting, sexist and misogynistic terms.

(more)

http://hillbuzz.org/2009/06/10/today-we-are-all-palins/

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- JP