Seven in brawl over Tibet ads
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
A political lobby group supporting the Tibetan community is seeking answers from Channel Seven about why its advertisements were not screened around the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
Advocacy group GetUp! claims it booked and paid for advertisements.
“The Olympic Opening ceremony came and went – and no GetUp! Ad was broadcast,” says the group’s website. “GetUp! is demanding an explanation from Ch 7 as to the reasons why the ad was pulled.
“We had confirmed bookings for TV spots either side of the Opening Ceremony but mid last week Channel 7 began denying the fact that we had booked the ad space,” says the website.
GetUp! and the Australian Tibet Council says it booked and paid for thousands of dollars worth of advertising space across metropolitan and regional centres.
“This is really a slap in the face to all the people who put in small amounts of money to fund the advertisement and so I guess there’s a range of options at this point,” GetUp! Executive Director, Brett Solomon said.
GetUp! says it will continue to try to get mainstream coverage for the campaign but will now approach other commercial networks.
Channel Seven has rejected claims it deliberately cancelled the advertisements.
Seven says GetUp! did not pay for air time before the ceremony and that almost 20 ads were cancelled after the Olympics coverage because of time constraints.