Time Warner pulls Fox Business commercial critical of CNBC

Richard Huff of the New York Daily News reports that a Fox Business Network commercial critical of rival CNBC was pulled from the air by Time Warner Cable, where the Fox network had purchased time.

Huff writes, “The ‘gone fishin” spots were placed locally to run in the national network, a common practice for advertisers looking to get cross network promotion without having to go through the main channels.

“CNBC would never willingly sell ad time to FBN, but Time Warner did, where the spots reached metropolitan area subscribers.

“Word is, FBN bought the time to run throughout the week. However, by Monday afternoon, the ‘gone fishin” promos taking a jab at CNBC were gone.

“Given TWC initially ran the ads and then stopped them, does, however, raise a question of whether the cable giant was influenced by outside forces to make a change or came to the decision on its own.

“‘We were not asked to remove the spot,’ a TWC spokesperson said.  ‘We made the decision based on inappropriate content.’

“Asked to elaborate on ‘inappropriate content,’ the spokesperson declined to comment further.”

Read more here. The commercial can be seen here.