RURAL REALITY vs. REALITY TV:
ANATOMY OF A PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
CBS on the defensive
The pickup truck taking a new family of "Beverly Hillbillies" out to California may be sputtering. Under pressure, CBS is dampening expectations for "The Real Beverly Hillbillies."
Associated Press television writer David Bauder
January 17, 2003
When CBS President Les Moonves began looking for someone to make the trip from the rural South to upscale Los Angeles for a reality-based remake of "The Beverly Hillbillies," he wasn't expecting Dee Davis to show up.
Reporter Meg James
Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2003
One week after the launch of the campaign, at a CBS press conference intended to promote new programs, national TV critics asked CBS President Leslie Moonves about the controversy surrounding "The Real Beverly Hillbillies." In a room full of press, Moonves was forced to comment directly on the show for the first time.
"The idea of the show was to question social mores," Moonves said. "It wasn't my intent to offend anybody. I'm sorry if we have." He said that the show was "very much in the discussion stages" and that the network had not located the family who would appear in the program.
Moonves' comments prompted another round of national press coverage, this time suggesting CBS was backing away from the program under pressure. Rural Strategies' President Dee Davis asked for and received a meeting with Moonves to discuss the show and CBS's service to rural communities. But the network refused to make a commitment to drop the show, so Rural Strategies continued the campaign. "If we just packed it in and quit right now, who's to say they won't turn around and put it on the air?" Davis told the Associated Press.