Mass Attorney General Squeezes TBS for Terrorist Cash

I’m with Jim Braude of 96.9 FM Talk radio in Boston being pissed off given the fact that the fat cat CEO of TBS is going to walk away clean by simply signing a check for two million dollars without fear of legal retribution. He’s good to go, the network he runs is good to go and yet the two men arrested for the incident are still going to trial? CEO… good! Flunky employee… bad, very, very bad! Then again even on the NBC Evening News tonight they reported that the Flunkies might just walk too!

How about we do a comparison of paychecks percentage wise and let the two guys arrested write a couple of checks too. That ought to be worth a couple of bucks to the city of Boston. Enough to buy the Mayor of Boston a coffee and a doughnut to shut his yap up for ten minutes while the serious folks figure out what is really going on during the next crisis.

Boston Reaches Settlement in Bomb Scare

By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: February 5, 2007
The New York Times

BOSTON, Feb. 5 — Turner Broadcasting System and a Manhattan marketing agency have agreed to pay $2 million in restitution and other costs for a Cartoon Network advertising campaign that set off fears of terrorism, the state attorney general, Martha Coakley, said today.

The agency, Interference, Inc., carried out the campaign, which placed electronic advertisements for the show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” in public places, including a Boston overpass where it was mistaken for a bomb last Wednesday.

The companies will pay $1 million to reimburse federal, state and local agencies for their response to the incident, which led officials to close a highway, bridges, subway stations and part of the Charles River for hours after dozens of the devices, which resemble Lite-Brite toys, were found in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.
The companies will pay an additional $1 million in “goodwill funds” that will be divided among the agencies for emergency response training and equipment and public outreach. - The New York Times

This was nothing but a stupid marketing scam and the State Attorney General should have nailed all parties involved! Prosecuted their asses to the fullest extent of the law. Then she should have sought financial payment for the trial and all the law enforcement agencies that were put on high alert. TBS and the punks that pulled this crap should have been made an example of what you don't want to do while your nation is at war with TERRORISTS! We are at war because some nut jobs crashed a couple of jets into The World Trade Center. Those nut jobs took off from Boston. Anyone else bothered by that?

With the acceptance of that check from TBS the state of Massachusetts is opening the flood gates for dozens of stupid marketing stunts. Just think about all the free air time on all the networks across the country that are talking about this “Attack” and pointing the finger at TBS and its new programs coming out. That kind of marketing would have cost TBS hundreds of millions of dollars. Cost to TBS without spending more than a couple of hundred bucks on some Lite Brite sets chucking the bird, a measley low advertising budget of just two million dollars.

That is how Madison Ave takes a twisted idea and makes it an overly successful launch that many folks will actually tune in to TBS just because they are curious about what the people of Boston supposedly overreacted to.

Papamoka

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