A PSA PSA

Because college radio stations get their broadcasting signals and licences free from the FCC, they aren't allowed to play any commercials to make money. Instead, they are required to play a few minutes of public service announcements an hour. Back when I was in college, every couple of months a fresh CD of PSAs would arrive in the mail containing various celebrities talking about things like preventing wildfires and making sure you recycle. The problem was that some of these people really pushed the limits of the word 'celebrity.' It was never a pop star with a hit song or an actor with a new movie coming out. A lot of the time it was a former TV actor desperate to find an addition minute of fame or an aging rocker who still had a few hours of community service to fulfill.

Since the average age of the people doing these PSAs was pushing 90, on more than one occasion upper 'management' (another word I use very loosely) had to meet and decide what we would do with the PSAs of someone who had passed on. This became quite the pressing issue when a new CD arrived featuring five different PSAs by John Denver, who had passed away a year earlier. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue, but I remember reading the listing and he was the most recognizable name on the CD. Essentially, it came down to an issue of famous dead versus unknown living. Ultimately, it was decided that we wouldn't play PSAs of anyone who was dead because it was A. disrespectful B. creepy and C. very distracting. We figured that anyone listening would spend the entire 30 seconds saying to people around them, "Isn't that person dead?" instead of thinking about saving polar bears.

The thing is, if a group of idiot 19 year-olds who weren't even getting course credit could figure that out, I have to question the wisdom of the people in charge of the charity I came across the other night. It was about 1 AM when I looked up from whatever murder mystery show I was watching and saw the smiling face of former Designing Women star, Dixie Carter. Before I could even utter, "Isn't she dead?" a graphic showing 1939-2010 appeared on the small side of the screen. Now, you might think the acknowledgement would stop my mind from wandering and concentrating on the disease she was trying to raise money for, but it didn't. Instead, now I couldn't stop wondering why this charity needed to keep running this ad. Did they make it right before she died and therefore couldn't afford to not run it? Did she die of this disease? Is the charity doing so poorly they couldn't afford to produce another PSA?

Well, thanks to Wikipedia I managed to get some answers. Carter shot the ad in 2003 and the charity started to re-air it following her death. I actually think that may be worse. Frankly, I'd rather the charity be broke then trying to stir up interest in their fundraising by using a celebrity's recent death. However, I also hope that it serves as a warning to any celebrity who films a PSA thinking it will run for a couple of months and then disappear: choose your charity wisely, because that commercial just might end up lasting a lot longer than you will.