A&E Television Network's decision to bring back Duck Dynasty was never in doubt. In fact, the surprise was that A&E officials even went through the charade of momentarily canning the show's patriarch Phil Robertson. Duck Dynasty quite simply is a business first and foremost. The lifeblood of A&E and indeed any other TV network is business. Business, that is, that's always defined solely as bringing in the advertising cash. After Robertson was temporarily dumped, A&E floated a trial balloon to see just how big a hit it would take if it kept Robertson cooling his broadcast heels for any prolonged length of time.
The network plopped hour after hour of Duck Dynasty reruns on in prime time slots on Christmas Day. The ratings went through the roof. That instantly translated into cash and more cash in ad revenue. The ad dollar bonanza from the one day marathon almost certainly gave a huge bump to the $80 million in advertising dollars the network bagged off the show through the first nine months of 2013. That, by the way, was even more millions than the show brought in the previous year. That's topped only by the more than $400 million the show brings in in merchandise sales.
A&E had a big inkling of just how big the rake in would be from the Robertson flap and its short-lived decision to shove him aside. A Boycott A&E over Robertson page on Facebook had nearly 2 million likes. The campaign to browbeat the network was bolstered by legions of petitions, and saber rattling against the network from the likes of Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and countless local GOP officials. Their rants against the network were the standard fare about an assault on freedom of speech, political correctness run amok, and allegedly caving to the tyranny of the minority, literally with the bigoted comments of Robertson against gays and blacks, minorities.
Presumably this was the
reason that A&E made the decision to put Robertson on ice for a moment in
the first place. But A&E's quick scrap of its suspension of Robertson was more
than just a business decision based on the wild popularity of one show. It
reflected the brutal reality of a commercial media that repeatedly puts dollars
over bigotry. This was never more apparent than in the furor over the presumed
canning by CBS of shock jock Don Imus in 2006 over racially inflammatory
cracks. The Imus flap, as with A&E and Robertson, told much about why virtually
anyone in the dollar obsessed media can prattle off foul remarks about gays,
blacks, Latinos Asians, Muslims, and women and skip away with a caressing hand
slap. They of course ramp up ratings and that makes a station's cash registers
jingle. Imus's MSNBC show drew an average of more than 350,000 viewers. Nielson
Media Research noted that it was a leap from the prior year. He was soon back
on the air.
The other reason why it's virtually impossible to permanently muzzle anyone
that talks homophobic and race trash is either the sphinx like silence of top
politicians, broadcast industry leaders, and corporate sponsors. Or worse, with
Robertson, the head long rush to defend them and their remarks on the always
self-serving "free speech" ground.
Whether it was Imus a few years back or Robertson today the networks always cover their backside with the by now template ploy. They loudly announce that the offender has been properly punished, got the message, and solemnly promises to mend their bigoted ways. Robertson followed the script to a tee and publicly stated that he regretted the language and of course, would never be the purveyor of hate and intolerance. This was more than enough for A&E to bury the hatchet and move on. There's even an added cash bonus for the network in the show's return. It can now pride-fully point to the show as a prime example of a lesson learned, a win-win, as some have crowed about the decision to rescind Robertson's suspension. The one win is that the ratings for the show likely will soar even higher with even more ad dollars pouring in and merchandise sales continuing to skyrocket. The other win is that the network can boast that it took a stand fleeting as it was against bigotry, and that it can now take pride in that the series star player publicly pledged to do the same.
A&E, Robertson, and the legion of Duck Dynasty fans happily pat themselves on their collective backs for supposedly putting the ugly episode behind them and going forward. Yet they are, predictably stone silent on why Robertson was briefly dumped at all, namely over the horrific bigotry that he openly displayed, and that millions openly or tacitly defended. But this doesn't merit a scant afterthought when the issue is bucks versus bigotry. It's no contest in the ratings and ad world which one will always win out.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent MSNBC contributor. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network. Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
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