Fox News rejected a national advertising buy for a 30-second spot for the Oscar-nominated documentary short film, “A Night at the Garden.” The ad warns viewers about the potential dangers of American fascism.
According to the Hollywood Reporter CEO Suzanne Scott said the ad “was not appropriate for our air.”
“The ad in question is full of disgraceful Nazi imagery regardless of the film’s message and did not meet our guidelines,” Fox News President of Ad Sales Marianne Gambelli added in a statement to the Journal.
The commercial was supposed to promote this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary short, which recounts a 1939 Nazi rally in New York City, and a warning — “It Can Happen Here.”
THR reported that the ad was supposed to run twice: once locally and another nationally during Sean Hannity’s primetime shows but was “rebuffed by the network, which controls national advertising.”
To fulfill Monday’s aborted local ad buy, the ad will run during the Feb. 14 episode of Hannity in Los Angeles, through Charter Communications’ Spectrum service. The film’s backers also plan to advertise on other national cable news networks.
Director Marshall Curry told THR, “It’s amazing to me that the CEO of Fox News would personally inject herself into a small ad buy just to make sure that Hannity viewers weren’t exposed to this chapter of American history.”
UPDATE: An update was made to the story to include a response from Fox News President of Ad Sales Marianne Gambelli
