CBS thinks it knows Super Bowl audience (and you): pro-life, anti-gay

U. of Florida QB Tim Tebow, the focus of Sunday's Super Bowl ad barrage. (CBS News)

Driving to work this morning, I heard a commercial on WTOP — our local all-news radio station here in Washington, DC — that tried to sell me Jesus (or, at least, sell me on Jesus).

It wasn’t unusual; the regional McLean Bible Church (which has several large campuses around the area) regularly pays to air messages from its pastor, Lon Solomon, on WTOP. Solomon always ends his messages with the phrase “Not a sermon… just a thought.” His tag line is, of course, disingenuous; the commercials are very much mini-sermons tied to popular culture or events (sometimes intriguingly so), telling me that a better life is just around the corner — filled with inner peace, happiness and true growth and strength as a person, a father and a community member — as soon as I accept Christ as my savior. (You can hear the commercials at NotaSermon.org.)

Whenever I hear a “Not a Sermon” message, I always think about the decision process at WTOP that led to its airing. This being Washington, DC, and home to the federal agencies and branches of government that decide legislation, regulations and control billions of dollars in appropriations, WTOP is often awash in issue-advocacy ads from industry groups, lobbyists and the like. But Lon Solomon’s sermons aren’t pushing for clean coal, net neutrality or any other issue — they’re spiritual ads advocating a particular religion and a particular way of religious life.

And while I may hang out in the NPR-listening, Washington Post-reading, secular realm of our nation’s capital — WTOP has clearly decided there’s a large portion of its audience that accepts public proclamations of faith and sermonizing as a regular part of its daily digest of news, sports and traffic on the eights. Some of them even welcome it. I can’t speak for WTOP, but I’m sure, as a top-rated radio station in a competitive market, they’ve got the research to show that Lon Solomon’s evangelism is good for business.

I mention all this because I think the same thinking is going on at CBS this week, as the network gets ready to air the broadcast centerpiece to America’s great secular holiday feast: Super Bowl XLIV.

CBS has, to much teeth-gnashing from pro-choice quarters, accepted a paid advertisement from Focus on the Family, the conservative Christian organization formerly led by Dr. James Dobson. The ad features University of Florida’s star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam — and while it hasn’t been seen yet, it’s widely reported to be a pro-life ad highlighting Pam Tebow’s decision to not abort her son Tim 23 years ago, despite risks and complications during her pregnancy. Uber-lawyer Gloria Allred is leading a fight to discredit the accuracy of the ad, which is set to air Sunday during the Super Bowl.

It’s a stunning move, as broadcast networks usually shy away from airing ads that take on heated religious and cultural issues — particularly during major broadcasts. But CBS has publicly stated that it’s rethinking that position — and the Tebow ad could be the first of a flood of issue-advocacy groups who want a part of your mindshare during your favorite sports telecast.

On Friday, CBS rejected a Super Bowl ad submitted to it by ManCrunch.com — a new, online gay dating site — telling the site that the ad’s “creative is not within the network’s broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday.” Here’s the ad:

(CBS also stated it was unsure ManCrunch could afford the $2.5 million price tag for the ad; ManCrunch says it has the cash.)

At least for the moment, let’s overlook the ludicrousness that is this particular double-standard. After all, the networks’ NFL broadcasts are a haven for gauzy and jaunty-themed erectile dysfunction ads — and the recent ad campaign for KY’s Yours and Mine “couples lubricant” had no trouble finding a home on network TV:

But somehow the ManCrunch.com ad is too explicit? Perhaps CBS hasn’t been watching any of its soap operas.

But again, let’s ignore that for a moment and focus instead on this:

Like the sermons airing on my local all-news radio station, these Super Bowl ad decisions are not random events. In a competitive marketplace and during a down economy, when Super Bowl ad prices have already started to slide (NBC charged upwards of $3 million per 30-second spot in 2009, CBS is getting $2.5 to 2.7 million this year), CBS is making a calculated and, I’d wager, well-researched decision. More than just desperately chasing available cash (CBS says its Sunday broadcast is just about sold out), the Eye network is betting that it knows the profile of its NFL audience and knows best which messages will maximize its advertising partners’ impact on that audience.

Ads don’t air randomly. When you’re watching TV, there’s a reason every commercial you see is airing at that moment — and it mostly has to do with who you are; or at least, who the broadcaster thinks you are.

CBS is rolling the dice about what it thinks its NFL audience wants to see and will accept. Super Bowl ads in the past have been rejected by CBS and others (think last year’s PETA ad that NBC nixed), but the decisions about the Tebow ad and the ManCrunch ad (plus CBS’s rejection of this gay-themed GoDaddy.com ad), taken together, give us a clear picture of what CBS thinks of its NFL broadcast audience: conservative, Christian and shunning of depictions of alternative definitions of family and faith.

Is that a sweeping generalization on the part of CBS? Of course it is. But when you’re dealing with an audience in the tens of millions, you have to make some generalizations. And in its Super Bowl ad decisions this year, CBS thinks it generally knows you.

Does it?

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