The Devolution of Fox

From the network that brought us Temptation Island:

“Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.”

That quote was from Fox's written refusal to air the commercial for Trojan's new advertising campaign Trojan Evolve.

After watching the commercial I fail to see where or when Fox decided that this ad was promoting the prevention of pregnancy and not the health-related issues surrounding sex. The ad doesn't appear to make that distinction so for all we know the pigs were sterile and HIV positive.

According to the Trojan Evolve website, there are 750,000 unintended teenage pregnancies in the US each year and one in four Americans have a sexually transmitted infection by the age of 25. Imagine for a moment the number of teenagers and young adults this commercial would reach (and potentially impact) if Fox chose to broadcast it during American Idol. The fact that Fox refuses to do so is particularly disturbing in light of their past and present prime-time programming.


To be fair, CBS also refused to air the commercial stating:

“while we understand and appreciate the humor of this creative, we do not find it appropriate for our network even with late-night-only restrictions.”

I could go on about the irony of both these statements coming from TV networks, but really the rest of this post is best summed up by this quote from the NYT article:

“It’s so hypocritical for any network in this culture to go all puritanical on the subject of condom use when their programming is so salacious,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a media critic who teaches at New York University. “I mean, let’s get real here. Fox and CBS and all of them are in the business of nonstop soft porn, but God forbid we should use a condom in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.”