Local cable providers in Florida have declined to run a Democrat group's ad aimed at stopping powerful companies from donating to abortion opponents, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
American Bridge 21st Century, a research and political advocacy group, planned to launch a six-figure ad blitz in three Florida media markets to call out AT&T, Disney, and NBCUniversal for donating money to anti-abortion politicians, the Times reported.
However, the activist group on Friday was told local cable providers had declined to run their ad. Comcast was the company that declined to air the ads in the Tallahasse market. Spectrum said no for Tampa and Orlando.
A spokesperson for Effectv, the ad sales division of Comcast Cable, said the American Bridge ad "did not comply with the company's 'Personal Attack' guidelines," the Times reported.
Those rules say Comcast can reject an ad if it is "merely an attack of a personal nature, a direct attack on an individual business or comment on a private dispute."
A Spectrum spokesperson also said the ad did not meet the company’s guidelines.
The Times said American Bridge 21st Century's commercial accused the corporations of backing politicians who plan to pass an abortion law like Texas' "heartbeat bill," which bans nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
"Lawmakers did it in Texas, and now they want to try to do it in Florida," actors say in the ad, the Times reported. "Big corporate money is funding them. What are they doing?"
American Bridge 21st Century accused AT&T, Disney and NBCUniversal of having given nearly $453,000 combined to Florida Republican state lawmakers who have sponsored abortion restrictions.
An AT&T spokesperson said the company also donated to pro-abortion rights politicians.
"AT&T has never taken a position on abortion legislation, and its employee political action committees have never based contribution decisions on a legislator’s positions on the issue of abortion," spokesperson Margaret Boles said in an email to the Times on Friday.
Disney and NBCUniversal did not respond to requests for comment. Both of those companies also have given money to pro-abortion rights politicians, the Times reported.
The newspaper said American Bridge 21st Century tried to place the commercial via the interconnect, a process that allows advertisers to make one purchase with a large cable company to reach the subscribers of multiple providers.
Earlier this year, the Dallas Morning News rejected an American Bridge ad that criticized AT&T for backing the sponsors of the Texas abortion law. The Morning News said it was following its advertising policy, the Houston Chronicle reported.
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