Advertisers Not "Desperate"

Not everyone is so desperate to be a part of the action on Wisteria Lane, it seems.

Though the runaway success of campy new Sunday drama Desperate Housewives has everyone talking comeback for formerly beleaguered, fourth-place network ABC, some advertisers are saying the show's sexy content has made them to decide to pack up their ad dollars and move them to a new address.

Lowe's, Tyson Foods and Kellogg's are among the Housewives advertisers who have decided not to buy additional commercial time during the show after their offices were flooded with complaints from anti-Housewives protesters.

And the rallying group behind the action: the American Family Association, a self-proclaimed "ministry devoted to the preservation of traditional family values," and a perennial thorn in the side of what the group deems inappropriate entertainment.

AFA's special projects editor, Randy Sharp, told CNN/Money that, within hours of being deluged with the calls and emails, reps from both Lowe's and Tyson confirmed to AFA that they would no longer advertise during the show.

"The show is not consistent with our core values, which focus on operating with integrity and trust in all we do," Tyson spokesman Gary Michaelson said.

"Our advertising guidelines are such that Lowe's chooses not to advertise in controversial programming, including programming with gratuitous sex and violence," Lowe's spokesperson Chris Ahearn said.

AFA, which also operates the spinoff Websites OneMillionMoms.com, OneMillionDads.com and OneMillionYouth.com, has also petitioned other advertisers to boycott Desperate Housewives, including packaged foods giant ConAgra and Pinnacle Foods (parent company of Swanson frozen foods).

ABC execs have remained mum on the imbroglio, saying they don't comment on specific advertisers.

But, while AFA's efforts have proved initially successful, the show's performance suggests that ABC can laugh off any real threat to its ad revenues, and laugh it off all the way to the bank.

Despite a few drop-outs like Lowe's and Tyson, the demand for spots during Desperate Housewives, which has already been picked up for the whole season by ABC, has increased. Last May, during the networks' annual upfront advertising sales, a 30-second commercial on the show sold for roughly $150,000. Now, says Advertising Age the asking price is around $300,000 for the same spot.

And, with the show claiming victory as, far and away, the highest-rated new series of the season and the third-most watched overall with an average of 20.8 million viewers, the publicity surrounding AFA's family-friendly boycott may, ironically, attract even more viewers to Desperate Housewives' clan of cheating spouses, frisky divorcées and frazzled moms.

In fact, a 1989 boycott campaign of Fox's raunchy sitcom Married...with Children by Michigan housewife Terry Rakolta drummed up so much publicity that several companies that agreed to drop their commercials from the show later returned as advertisers. And it is widely accepted that the publicity from the campaign helped boost the show's viewership and ensure its 11-season run on the network.

Meanwhile, memo to ABC: the American Family Association troops are already rallying for their next target--Life As We Know It, the Kelly Osbourne high school drama that's based on a risqué British young-adult novel.

"The show is nothing but sex, sex, sex," AFA's Sharp told CNN/Money. "We're really looking hard at it."

For potential boycott purposes only, of course.