Last Thursday, what was thought to be just another free PSA was aired locally during Rush Limbaugh in Flint MI. The spot seemed to be a Miss Dig type message to call 811 before starting a digging project. But then I heard that it was a message from Enbridge.
In Michigan, Enbridge is infamous for a pipeline oil spill in 2010 which fouled the Kalamazoo River. Enbridge is also involved in a controversial pipeline project in Sarnia, Ontario.
A fellow anti-Limbaugh activist sent a message to Enbridge and received the following reply:
Hi Linda,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Given the nature of our advertising message (promoting safe digging) is a public service announcement, the company who manages our media bookings provided our radio spots to a number of stations for them to consider running additional ads at no additional cost to Enbridge. This allows us to get an important safety message out to more communities. This request was made at the station level, and not for consideration during specific programming. Our team has looked into this and taken action to ensure our ads are no longer heard in conjunction with Mr. Limbaugh’s programming which was not part of our planned media activity.
Thanks again for flagging this to us. LKS 4/16/14
I wish Enbridge luck in keeping their PSAs off Rush Limbaugh. The spot was aired on Cumulus Media's WWCK in Flint MI. WWCK is still airing PSAs from the American Heart Association, despite the organization's public statement asking stations not to air their PSAs during Rush. By coincidence, I posted an aircheck in the Stop Rush database from last Thursday's Rush Limbaugh broadcast on WWCK which has both PSAs from Enbridge and the American Heart Association. You can hear this spot in the American Heart Association's entry in the
Stop Rush database. Look in the WWCK entry for 04/10/14. The Enbridge PSA is heard first.
The Boycott Rush Limbaugh Sponsors Facebook Page
The StopRush database.