Another Advertiser Pulls Out Of “All-American Muslim”

Robert Birge, Chief Marketing Officer of Kayak, an online travel company, sent a letter of apology to its customers for what it says was the poor way it handled the decision to stop advertising on TLC’s All-American Muslim.

I should have communicated more clearly. We would not want anyone to think that we caved to hatred. I wish I could share some of the emails I’ve received from our team. They are also very unhappy with how I handled this.

Please allow me to explain the decision. First, our approach to advertising decisions is to choose advertising based on who watches it, not the political leaning of the program.

When we decided to give our money to TLC for this program, we deemed the show a worthy topic. When we received angry emails regarding our decision to advertise, I looked into the show more thoroughly.

The first thing I discovered was that TLC was not upfront with us about the nature of this show. As I said, it’s a worthy topic, but any reasonable person would know that this topic is a particular lightning rod. We believe TLC went out of their way to pick a fight on this, and they didn’t let us know their intentions. That’s not a business practice that generally gets repeat business from us. I also believe that it did this subject a grave disservice. Sadly, TLC is now enjoying the attention from this controversy.

Birge, who says he received bulk emails from the Florida Family Association, concludes with:

Lastly, I watched the first two episodes. Mostly, I just thought the show sucked.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.