LEARNING CHANNEL PULLS A-B'S BEER DOCUMENTARY

When Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. hired a company to produce a cable program on
the history of beer, it used the same advertising agency that gave the
world the Budweiser frogs.

Critics claimed that when the Learning Channel agreed to air that program,
"An American History of Beer," as a documentary next week, it blurred the
line between advertising and programming.

The Learning Channel retreated Tuesday and withdrew the program, which was
created by DDB Needham, a division of Omnicom Group and one of A-B's main
ad agencies.

The order to pull the program came from Jonathan Rodgers. He is president
of Discovery Networks, the operating division of Discovery Communications
that controls four cable networks including the Learning Channel, the
Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and the Travel Channel.

Lynn McReynolds, spokeswoman for Discovery Networks, said Wednesday that
the Learning Channel has rescheduled the history program. It will run four
times between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m. July 11 and 12, a time period reserved for
paid infomercials.

Anheuser-Busch, which already advertises on the Learning Channel, said it
would pay to run the program.

The program originally was scheduled to run at no cost to Anheuser-Busch at
2:30 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 p.m. Sunday, when the network fare normally
runs to home-improvement shows. McReynolds said Discovery Networks'
decision was motivated by concern for its credibility. It had nothing to do
with the content of "An American History of Beer," she said.

"This is not an infomercial, it is a well-produced documentary," she said.

The program opens with a written message from August A. Busch III. Although
it does not immediately identify him as chairman of Anheuser-Busch Cos.,
the statement says the program is being presented by Anheuser-Busch and is
told through the eyes of the Busch family.

The program explains that 17th-century Europeans preferred beer to water
because it was better for them. They did not know it at the time, but that
was because the boiling of water in the brewing process killed
disease-causing microorganisms.

Viewers also will learn that the Boston Tea Party was planned at a tavern
and that three of the country's first four presidents made beer.

George Hacker, director of the alcohol policies project at the Center for
Science in the Public Interest, said the Busch family perspective does not
include information about alcohol abuse.

"The fact is the product is the most-abused drug substance in America,"
Hacker said.

"To portray beer as a benign contributor to American culture is rank
revisionism and is blatant propaganda that needs to be balanced by other
information about the product."

Hacker said he is concerned that any advertiser might have undue influence
on television programming. "It clearly sounds as if the Learning Channel
were sucking up to its advertiser," he said.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education in
Washington, said increased competition for advertising dollars is breaching
the wall that consumers expect to separate advertising from objective
sources of information.

Web sites and cable programmers are particular offenders, he said. "It is
cause for serious concern. Increasingly, advertising is calling the shots
on cable and online information," Chester said.

"When you watch a documentary on the Learning Channel, you think the
information is unbiased. The crocodile swims that way. We should not be
allowing advertisers to participate in the production of documentary
programming about themselves."

Copyright (c) 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski