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The Spin: ABC Fries

This Is Your TV Network on Antidrug Ads

by Leslie Savan ABC's month long ''March Against Drugs'' an antidrug ad
injected into network programming once every hour; antidrug messages
exhaled by news shows, sports programs, even sitcoms and soaps; all of it
peaking March 30 in several dramatic minutes of total network silenceis a
big corporate Disneylike solution to two problems: kids doing more drugs
and ABC's slipping ratings.

''We have a social responsibility,'' says ABC News president David Westin,
explaining this unprecedented multimedia antidrug fest, worth between $20
million and $500 million in exposure. ''But at the same time, I also think
this is important in positioning our network. . . . If we are to succeed as
a business, we're going to have to establish a connection with viewers and
offer them something, give them something that makes their life better.''

ABC, which has fallen from the number one network two years ago to number
three today, has decided that the way to make our lives better is to
volunteer as America's family counselor. ABC's single humble goal, as its
hundreds of ads announce, is to get parents and children to talk about
drugs. It's narrowcasting, it's family centered, and, above all, it's safe.

It's also familiar. March Against Drugs sounds like a massive extension of
ABC News's health and moneyobsessed segments with women'smagazine titles
like ''Your Money, Your Choice'' and ''Solutions'' (a gimmick that all the
nets are quite high on now). But what's more, MADwhich in the Cold War
(preDrug War) days stood, of course, for Mutually Assured
Destructionsounds like Clinton.

To increase his ratings, for a couple years now the president's been
stressing small, achievable, familyoriented initiatives. And ever since
Bob Dole called him ''AWOL in the war on drugs '' after another study found
teenage drug use on the rise, Clinton has been at pains to point out how
unsoft on drugs he really is. Two weeks ago, he proposed an antidrugad
campaign that would dwarf ABC's, and anyone else's: five years and $1.75
billion worth of antidrug ads, half the cost paid for by federal funds,
half donated by the media.

These spots are not to be confused with the justlaunched public service
announcements from the Ad Council that feature Clinton encouraging parents
to take better care of their children. Parenting, he says, is the
''toughest job in the world''one he helped make tougher by pushing a
million children off welfare and possibly many of them into drugs. (But if
they're lucky, maybe these kids will get special ads targeted to them, too.)

Clinton's drugcontrol office applauds ABC's effort. The network has
created 48 new PSAs, and they'll run so often that 90 per cent of all
adults ages 18 to 49 are expected to see them an average of 11 times in
March.

Some of the spots are immediately preceded by those familiar ads from the
Partnership for a DrugFree America (PDFA): the father who yells at his
teenage son, ''Who taught you how to do this stuff?!''; the son yells back,
''I learned it by watching you!'' Each ad is followed by the simpler
ABCtagged spot in which a network starMichael J. Fox, Drew Carey, NYPD
Blue peopletalks straight to the camera: ''It might surprise you,'' says
Home Improvement son Taran Noah Smith, ''but your parents probably aren't
stupid when it comes to drugs. Why don't you talk to them?'' All end with
the slogan ''Silence is acceptance.''

Meanwhile, don'tdodrugs plots will pop up this month in General Hospital,
Grace Under Fire, Home Improvement, and High Incident. The evening news and
Good Morning, America each did a weeklong drug series last week, with more
coming up.

Each MAD element points to ''ABCDDAY''the March 30 ''townhall meeting''
hosted by Peter Jennings. Punctuating it will be a few minutes of silence
(words of some sort will appear on screen, so that you don't imagine the
network has OD'd), during which parents are supposed to talk with their
children about drugs. Since most of the advice on what to actually say has
so far been pretty darn vague, the silent night could prove the ultimate
ratings booster.

For 30 days and 30 nights, ABC will have hyped us into believing that there
is a special way to save our kids. The antidrug establishment now knows not
to tell children to just say noa line to this effect even appears in a
PDFA ad. But so far they seem to have replaced it with ''Just be honest,''
as one expert on Good Morning, America told an increasingly frustrated
Forrest Sawyer, who kept asking, What do you say if your kid doesn't
believe anything you say?"

So by the time the Silence of the Screen arrives on that magical date, we
might expect a great unleashing of wisdom. All that familial emotion,
played out in a nationwide interactive moment, will set us straight.

Though MAD is ABC's baby, it's working with the sometimes controversial
adsupplier Partnership for a DrugFree America. The nonprofit group of ad
and marketing people has put together some 520 antidrug PSAs since
1986from the infamous friedbrain spot to a few actually classy ones.
They're all based on the premise that if advertising can sell us products,
it can ''unsell'' them, too. In this case, of course, the product is drugs,
and the Partnership has focused primarily on preventing ''first use.''

In 1989, President Bush helped get media outlets to contribute $1 million
worth of time and space a day to run PDFA ads. For a while, the Partnership
was claiming that wherever its ads ran heavily, negative attitudes toward
drugs increased among teenagers and use declined. But since the early '90s,
teen drug use has risen dramatically. Just last week, the Partnership
announced the dire results of its latest study: even kids nine to 12 are
''growing more tolerant toward drugs'' and doing more, particularly marijuana.

But rather than take this as a sign the advertising has failed, the
Partnership says it proves more ads are needed. The reason for the
''erosion,'' says vice chairman Tom Hedrick, is that ''the amount of media
support has gone down by at least one third. Drugs dropped off the media
map, while other issues, like AIDS and child abuse,'' took up more of the
precious PSA time.

And now that it's riding ABC's coattails, the Partnership is coming under
heavy criticism. Shortly before MAD month, a group of organizations and
individuals headed by Common Sense for Drug Policy, an Arlington,
Virginiabased clearinghouse for drug policy alternatives, sent a letter to
Westin saying that relying primarily on the Partnership ''may do children
more harm than good.''

The letter decries the Partnership's decision not to run ads warning of the
dangers of legal drugs, ''especially given that over 500,000 people die
each year from alcohol and tobacco35 times the number of deaths from all
illegal drugs combined. By excluding any mention of alcohol and tobacco,
the implicit message sent to kids and the general public is that legal
drugs are not as harmful as illegal drugs.''

The Partnership's ''zerotolerance message'' may inhibit more than
encourage the kinds of dialogue ABC hopes for, the letter continues.
''[M]andatory drug testing for youths, which the Partnership openly
advocates, is a recipe for fostering mistrust between parents and their
children.''

Westin responded in a brief letter: ''I assume that even our most
vociferous critics would not object to our getting parents and children
together to talk about drugs.''

There are signs that ABC News at least is not taking on all the politics of
the Partnership. A piece last week showed a mother whose teenage son died
of an inhalant wishing he had just smoked marijuana instead. On the other
hand, we are not likely to see PrimeTime Live investigating the
Partnership's effectiveness.

When you have historical amounts of PSA time and everyone's attention, why
not throw in warnings about the vastly more lethal legal drugs?

''It's a constant criticism,'' says Hedrick. ''But we've had to learn the
hard way that trying to be all things to all people is one of the best ways
to not accomplish anything.''

Especially if you bite the hand that feeds you. Up until about two years
ago, the Partnership was accepting money from alcohol and tobacco
companies, including Philip Morris, RJR Reynolds, American Brands, and
Anheuser Busch. (It still accepts money from pharmaceutical companies, who
prefer the illegals out of their way.) Hedrick says that these companies'
contributions ''never totaled more than 1 and a half to 2 and onehalf per
cent of our total budget. But we were constantly harangued, especially by
people who want to legalize marijuana and other drugs. So it was best'' to
drop them.

Well, would ABC handle an equally aggressive, monthlong dialogue on teens
and alcohol? ''I can't say they'd rule it out,'' says ABC News spokeswoman
Leslee Spoor. ''If this is successful, why not?''

Probably because beer companies spent $660 million on all advertising in
just the first nine months of 1996, according to Competitive Media
Reporting. We've seen hardhitting network stories on tobacco, which is not
allowed to advertise on TV, but the number one drug of choice among teens
is unlikely to get a March Against Booze treatment.

Clinton has been fairly brave in going up against the tobacco
companiesonce research showed the move would win soccermom approval. But
when and if his massive antidrug campaign takes off (it will probably go up
before Congress in the fall), don't expect to see a lot of messages on teen
drinking and smoking.

The White House drug policy office says the likely scenario is that paid
advertising will go toward ads about illegal drugs. PSAs about alcohol and
cigarettes, however, will probably air in mediadonated time whenever
stations can squeeze them in, which usually is in the wee hours of the night.

When two of the most addictive and abused substances known to
mantelevision and moneymix, we're all at risk. Whether any of these
antidrug campaigns actually workand the proof is highly debatable (see
sidebar and the March 3 New Republic on the scary schoolbased program Drug
Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE), they also serve other purposes.
Antidrug advertising itself has become a media fix, promising a feelgood
rush, a sense of being in controlnot to mention a shot in the arm for
ratings.

Research assistance: Sara Rosen Talk back! editor@villagevoice.com