Disney (ESPN) Has Rules About Condoms
Via Deadspin...
ESPN's Cringing, Persnickety, Condom-Obsessed Standards And Practices Manual, Presented Unabridged
Below you'll find ESPN's editorial and advertising guidelines as of 2010, sent to us by a tipster. They are the sort of guidelines one finds beneath coffee mugs at any typical media company: binder with laminated cover; nice paper stock; a general air of scolding, constipated didacticism that's like something out of Sister Mary Catherine's classroom at Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary. The difference here is that ESPN is not a typical media company, and watching ESPN pretend that it is — "Our credibility rests on the use of identifiable sources and information" — is a little like watching a dog who thinks he's people.
"Editorial Guidelines for Standards and Practices" is the official name, though that's only because "Fifty-Some Pages of Corporate Gently Reminding You Not to Fuck Up the Brand" is a little too on-the-nose. The good stuff is mostly in the second file, "Advertising Standards," wherein we find such commandments as:
• Condom advertisements may air only between 9:00 p.m. and 4:59 a.m. (ET).
• Condom advertisements may not air in morning editions of SportsCenter
• Condom advertisements may not air in any programming ESPN reasonably believes to have significant audience concentrations or appeals to persons under age 17.
We pause here to note that, had ESPN always been so strict about not putting rubbery sacks of human ejaculate on television, Chris Berman would be working an Action News sports desk somewhere in the Lower Connecticut River Valley.
There's more:
• Condom advertisements may not appear on ESPN.com home page, index pages, NCAA, Action Sports, Arcade, RISE or Little League.
• Condom advertisements may not appear on any content that ESPN reasonably believes is primarily targeted at persons under age 17, including youth fan pages.
• Condom advertisements promoting purely Social Responsibility messages may air on the ESPN home page and Index pages.
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