Viacom irked by Fuse billboard
By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/1/2003 11:09:00 AM
Music network Fuse’s latest New York billboard has apparently irked Viacom Inc., parent of rival music network MTV: Music Television.
Fuse, formerly MuchMusic USA, had been planning to unfurl a new billboard in New York’s Times Square Friday gibing at MTV’s Hamptons beach house on Long Island’s tony East End and touting its version of a beach house: a rundown trailer home.
Viacom’s Viacom Outdoors unit, which owns the billboard on the Bertelsmann Building, rejected the ad for being too tacky, Fuse representatives said. At press time, Fuse said Viacom was reconsidering.
Fuse, the billboard proclaims, plays all music all day -- a shot at MTV’s light video lineup. But MTV likes to point out that sister network MTV2 plays all music videos, and MTV2 counts about 50 million subscribers to Fuse’s 31 million.
Fuse’s mobile home may make it to Times Square either way: Network president Mark Juris plans to drive it there himself.
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