April 30, 2008 -
While public transit agencies in Chicago and Miami have pulled ads for Grand Theft Auto IV, it looks as if GP's local bus company will permit the ads to stay.According to a report by all-news radio station KYW-1060, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) won't bow to (unspecified) pressure to remove the ads. From the KYW story:
SEPTA... is standing firm in its decision run the ads on hundreds of its buses...
SEPTA officials would not be interviewed, but they issued a statement saying while some might consider the game offensive, "the advertisement is not."
The ad campaign is slated to run for six weeks, with 350 posters on buses and other locations, generating $83,000 in revenue for SEPTA.
SEPTA last year was criticized for accepting ads for the movie "Hitman," ads featuring images of guns.
GP: It's not yet clear how SEPTA came to deal with the GTA IV ad issue. However, after I posted a picture of a SEPTA bus carrying a GTA IV ad last Friday, Jack Thompson, who was then in the process of persuading Miami-Dade Transit to drop its GTA IV ads, indicated he would pressure SEPTA to take a similar course of action.
In any case, if Thompson did try with SEPTA, he failed. GP has a call into SEPTA management for more details. In the meantime, it's good to see SEPTA standing firm on this issue. There are obvious First Amendment implications and, hey, SEPTA is strapped for cash. As a regional taxpayer, I'm happy to see that $83,000 in revenue coming in.
Comments
As long as T2 ponies up the "fair market" value for the ad space, the transit system can't discriminate.
Especially when it's such benign images as 3 characters, with no guns, etc, in view at all.
There's been a few court cases about this, where groups with controversial ideas successfully sued transit advertisers for pulling their ads on "morality" grounds...
I highly doubt this is SEPTA sticking it to 'the man'. Good news regardless.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
he could use an old SUPREME COURT case "Railway Express v. New York" which allowed advertising restrictions based on the state having a "logical reason" for doing it.
But that case (while not overruled) came WAY before all the first amendment litigation we have now. It's an unused relic.
Am I missing something?
This is, like I said, good news... but it's almost certainly because of the revenue...
Philadelphia = Resisting JT FTW!!!
IF OUR CHILDREN WERE EXPOSED TO MAN ON A POSTER DOING NOTHING OFFENSIVE AT ALL IT WOULD CORRUPT THEM MORALLY AND CAUSE THEM TO SHOOT PEOPLE!
It is good to see SEPTA showing some backbone but as mentioned earlier it is probably a matter of who is paying and how much SEPTA stands to make. So no kudos
I gotta go see what's up.
"The game may be offensive, but the ad is not."
EXACTLY!!! Whodathunk? Dur dur dur!!!!!!!!
:-P
Odds Jack-o slams them and says they were bribed by R*?
One TO forty-seven octillion, three hundred sixty-five septillion, one hundred forty-six sextillion, seven hundred eighty-nine quintillion, four hundred fifty-one quadrillion, three hundred forty-seven trillion, eight hundred ninety-four billion, six hundred fifty-seven million, eight hundred ninety-five thousand, two hundred thrity-six.
Pretty good chance he will.
Monetary motives aside, score one for the birthplace of the Constitution!
'Sides, I've always secretly suspected that Liberty City was really Philly and not New York. But that's just me.