All they wanted was to be able to buy airtime to express their concerns – 30 seconds here, 30 seconds there. They wanted to speak to the Canadian people in the same forum that McCain uses to flog its crappy frozen pizzas. Canada’s television broadcasters – the outfits who get licensed to use the public (your and my) airwaves said “no.” So AdBusters took them to court – and lost.

The AdBusters press release explains it this way:

“It’s outrageous that the fast food, oil and automobile industries can buy as much TV time as they want in order to promote their agendas, but citizens are not allowed to talk back,” said Adbusters Editor-in-Chief Kalle Lasn in response to the ruling. “Canadian democracy will not work properly until we the people have the same right to buy airtime as corporations do.”

The rejected Adbusters ads pointed out that over 50 percent of the calories in a Big Mac come from fat, called for an end to the age of the automobile, and promoted Buy Nothing Day. While Court Justice William Ehrcke ruled that private broadcasters have the right to run whatever ads they like, Adbusters feels the case raises some troubling questions.”

Outrageous? Actually I think they’re right. Unless there’s something offensive, dishonest or inciteful in an advertisement or public service message, why should a television network – using our public property – be allowed to refuse to run it provided they’re paid the standard rate for their (our) airtime?

If McDonald’s is vulnerable to an ad pointing out, truthfully, that half the calories in a Big Mac come from fat, why should a paying customer be refused the opportunity to express that point?

In our progressively dumbed down society, television is becoming the media for communication, most of it programmed to the lowest common denominator. Still, that is where you have to go if you want to reach the populace and the folks who spew out the Big Macs and Cadillac Escalades know it. Should they be able to use their advertising clout to monopolize one of the most important forms of public property, the airwaves? If so, why?