MEDIA WATCH | LIBERTY MEDIA CORPORATION

Liberty Media, Don’t Support A&E’s Religious Discrimination Farce

I would hope you’d consider keeping the company of cooler heads and not placing your product where no good outcome is possible.

August 21, 2018

Gregory B. Maffei
President & Chief Executive Officer
Liberty Media Corporation

Dear Sir,

Not to put too fine a point on it, positioning your company with a show promoting religious bigotry is just a bad idea, with no possible upside. Especially a show like “Scientology: The Aftermath” (and other anti-religious shows on A&E Networks) as it continues its nose dive in the ratings. Unless you’re selling sheets to the KKK or used mobile homes to redneck tweekers, you won’t see much of an ROI from advertising dollars spent on a show that whips a few villagers into acts of violence.

Frankly, the more insidious problem with this type of programming is that it can be turned upon any and all religious position, including your own (or even a lack thereof). And good old Murphy’s Law will tell you that if it can be, it will be.

Bigotry is just historically bad business, and despite what a few insular network flunkies would have their audience believe, Scientologists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are found nearly everywhere, functioning productively in society at large—so much so, that I can almost guarantee that you know at least one member of each religion within your own circle of acquaintance. (If you happen to be one of the few deprived of such acquaintance, we can grab some coffee sometime and cure the deficiency.)

Anyway, I would hope you’d consider keeping the company of cooler heads and not placing your product where no good outcome is possible.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Rodger Clark
Los Angeles, Calif.