Ads They Refused to Run

By NINA BURLEIGH/WASHINGTON

Health-care propagandists like Harry and Louise have become ubiquitous on TV lately, but not all the messages are getting through. In the Washington area, four network affiliates sparked a free-speech controversy by turning down a 2- min. ad, produced by a pro-Clinton group, which attacks the Pizza Hut company for failing to provide health coverage for all its workers. Pizza Hut, owned by TV advertising giant Pepsico, has been a foe of the Clinton plan's employer mandate.

After Pizza Hut heard about the ad, its lawyers threatened the producers and affiliates with legal action on the grounds that the commercials conveyed false information. "They're not going to say this, but it's a worry about advertising," contended Robert Chlopak, a consultant to the Health Care Reform Project, which conceived the ads. But on Friday, Pizza Hut president Allan Huston appeared to back down from the company's threat. As a result, the reform project will try again to broadcast the ad.

The networks have got entangled in a separate dispute. NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN have refused to air two half-hour G.O.P. advertisements against the Clinton plan, both paid for by billionaire Ross Perot. Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour finds this unfair, since last month NBC aired a two- hour, prime-time special on health care funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonprofit group with close ties to the Clinton reform effort.

In their defense, the networks say they never accept advocacy advertising. For NBC's part, the network says the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation bought the air time, but NBC retained all editorial control over the program, which Tom Brokaw hosted.