TV spot against Tv gets no airtime

Here is an interesting story from the International Herald Tribune. Stern, one of Germany’s most popular weekly magazine wanted to promote its Aug. 25th issue with a 12-second Tv spot on the leading German channels, but they didn’t manage to buy the space, because the Tv stations refused to air a spot which was actually againt television. The Stern issue featured the headline “Turn It Off: Why Television Has Gotten So Boring”.
Even if the ad was rejected, Stern received quite a lot of PR boost so, in the end, maybe they just spared a lot of money…