NBC Refuses Pickens Plan Ad 49 comments
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T. Boone Pickens is up in arms over NBC's decision not to run one of his new TV ads promoting the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel, and an alternative to importing expensive foreign oil. In an e-mail to supporters Mr. Pickens is quoted as saying, "NBC is refusing to run one of our strongest ads, and I need your help in showing NBC they can't control what we can or cannot say."
The new 15-second TV spot, entitled "Iran is Changing Its Cars to Run on Natural Gas," calls attention to this development by this OPEC member country. In the ad Mr. Pickens is pictured saying, "Get this one. Iran is changing its cars to run on natural gas and we're not doing a thing here." His website says NBC wants him to "prove" the words, "we're not doing a thing here." The website states that all other TV networks have accepted the ad for airing.
Perhaps this confrontation between this Texas billionaire entrepreneur and TV network is much ado about nothing. Or maybe it's more than that. It is difficult to imagine this was simply a decision by some mid-level TV executive, and it was not approved by the head office of NBC. It also comes at a time when General Electric (GE), which owns NBC, and CEO Jeff Immelt are under fire from shareholders for the giant company's lackluster financial performance. A public fight between a popular advertiser and NBC is the last thing he needs.
It will be interesting to see if NBC relents and runs the ad in question. Many Pickens Plan site bloggers are incensed by this snub, which some attribute to NBC's political bias or a conflict of interest by GE, which manufactures components for nuclear reactors and natural gas turbines for public utilities. However, since Mr. Pickens has ordered $2 billion of equipment from GE to operate his proposed wind farms, it is likely NBC's parent company will step in to diffuse this slight to one of their major customers before it escalates any further.
Disclosure: none
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This article has 49 comments:
I wholeheartedly recommend Pick's plan to unite Americans in the worthy fight to unshackle our economy from foreign energy suppliers, something "we" as a complacemt and selfish nation failed to initiate between 1973 and the present.
And yet Pick played a sleazy and substantive role in 'electing' the ultimately ineffective and unimaginative chief executive. Pick pertetrated the swiftboating of our nation into additional years of retrograde action on the energy independence front.
Now he tries to assume the role of uniter and energy dependence savior? A sudden change in values and purpose? I don't buy it. Pick earned his stripes as a divider and as perpetrator of the lowest common denominator of disinformation in public discourse.
The mantle of leader and motivator doesn't fit the man.
thefitzman.blogspot.co...
published anywhere. The WSJ and Barron's have each turned me down (twice). I don't pretend the policy I developed is perfect, but I do know it is light years better than what we have now, which is nothing but an oil centric policy with mandated ethanol that is causing food inflation. Why, in light of $120/barrel oil, $4/gasoline, raging inflation, and an S&P500 that has returned less than 2.6% annually for the last 10 years do the leading "financial" media not want to solve our biggest challenge: oil? Throw in how the US is intentionally strengthening Russia, Sauid, Iran, and Iraq and you really have to wonder what in hell is going on. It is maddening. By the way, NBC did finally approve the Pickens ad, but only AFTER Pickens sent this email out to his "army":
A message to all members of PickensPlan Army: NBC is refusing to run one of our strongest ads, and I need your help in showing NBC they can't control what we can or cannot say. The 15-second ad talks about how the government of Iran is making a MAJOR effort to use natural gas in their vehicles so they can free up $120 a barrel oil to sell to us while we are doing nothing. I need you to click on the link, watch the ad, then send it to five of your friends. Please ask each of those five people to send it on to five of THEIR friends. This is important. Let me know what you think: www.pickensplan.com/ne.../ --T. Boone Pickens Visit PickensPlan at: push.pickensplan.com
kirklindstrom.blogspot...
More on Iran.
www.prosefights.org/nm...
And a bogus court order stealing $22,036 of our money.
For the moment this is the last opportunity on wall street. Everyone from the new president elect is in on this. Why do you think that the alternative energy bill has not been passed? Watch these stocks start to move after the third quarter. Buy the dips in this volitilty.
Dontcha just love double standards!?!
"The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly “sustainable” practice, he has piggybacked this water project onto a windmill project pitched as an alternative to oil."
And, there are many conservatives that are also against drill, drill, drill.
Some of us look beyond the end of our nose without blinders.
SMALLER GOV'T!!!!!!!!
We could've had an energy policy but Vice President Dick Cheney had PRIVATE meetings with oil executives and refused to release ANY information about those meetings to the public. Now we find ourselves up a huge stump over a complete lack of an energy policy and some idiots on this site want to blame the libruls for the whole mess.
People are hurting all over this country over the price of gasoline and the Republicans and their sheeple think that drilling in ANWAR and offshore is a solution to the problem whereas it will be, at a minimum, ten years before this can have ANY effect and then only a very short term one.
Our problems are big and they will require a plan by the federal government to deal with them. We have been royally screwed by the Republicans and their Corporate masters. Too bad some people think that government can only make matters worse, whereas sometimes, sometimes, government is very necessary to deal with problems. The need for an nuanced energy policy to help this country get back to being the vibrant nation is one of the most urgent needs we have.
I do not know if the Democrats, if they actually get a functioning majority in the Senate and a president who can walk and chew gum at the same time will bring about what we need but it's about damn time we sit them down on the hot seat and see what they're made of.
And if they don't do it we'll vote those bums out of office in '10 and '12.
The policy we've had of burning other peoples oil/gas and less of our own, was and is good policy.
We failed on policy/action to eliminate the use of both of the above.
Here, our policy was/is to satisfy an itch (for all involved) with the love for the ICE (SUV's included) and WAIT till the consumer was/is fed up with high priced energy - which we're approaching, for some.
AND THEN, WE'RE GOING TO DRILL, DRILL, DRILL MORE OF THE SAME TO SATISFY THAT ITCH, INSTEAD OF ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR IT - NOW THAT IS DUMB.
BUT, STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES. OR WAS IT STUPID DOES AS STUPID IS?
What may be true is we get what we deserve.
If we do that (which at this point either or both parties may be able to do eqully well), and IF we then get some real LEADERSHIP, we eventually could see "BETTER SOONER" - but that won't happen the way things are going today; BADDER is guaranteed. And BADDER FASTER may be better - so vote Dem; because voting Rep is only going to be the "promise" of better with drill, drill, drill which is not the correct answer once past your nose' it is just more BADDER.
I'm not sure putting conservation on the source side is valid.
And further, you just proved that we should tax energy as Europe, et.al.. has to drive the US to conserve, electric trains, small cars, electrric delivery vans, scooters, much insulation, district heating; and co-generation, more hydro, more nuclear, more wind, more solar; and less drill, drill, drill and less dig, dig, dig.
Bottom line - create change thru taxation, not stupid policy, lobbiests, selfishness and graft.
"Clearlead" said:
Gore is correct that America needs to use its natural gas for power generation that can fuel electric cars that cause less pollution than using this fuel directly for transportation uses (just b/c Iran is doing it, doesn't make me think that it necessarily the way to go).
Though I'm suspicious of Pickens as a person, he is VERY clear about his intent for Nat Gas vehicles. Natural gas is the natural fuel for heavy duty moving equipment and trucks. His more modest approach is to divert the nat gas fuel away from electric production and initially into heavy duty equipment. That's where the 20% reduction in oil comes from.
Unless Detroit et.al. rush to remanufacture and we have thousands of new re-fueling stations -- neither very likely in the ten years envisioned by the plan -- this approach seems sound.
Seems like he has some stroke here.
corporate.honda.com/en...
My point was that a nat gas conversion and delivery system depends on many variables before diffusion can extend down to the individual vehicle -- early adopters as yourselves aside. Pickens simply points out that the Port of Long Beach and now the Port of Los Angeles are two high-impact, immediate examples of those with the resources and desire to move ahead with conversion. Since trucking is the other carbon-belching major problem, that's the direction to place the initial emphasis.
I am a little late in finding your article, yet it I feel it is not too late to express my thoughts to you.
There should not be any reason why GE (NBC) and Mr. Pickens can not come to an agreement. What happened to the "Golden Rule". Perhaps this has been lost sight of?...our main concerns should be for the progress of the USA and our personal differences should be aside. What is best to promote our independence on other countries for our dependency on "oil" must be corrected. By all concerned working together, it may have a chance.