America Online may have been furious enough with the Janet Jackson breast exposure on the Super Bowl's halftime show that the online giant is pondering whether to demand a refund of the money it paid to advertise during the halftime show.
That's what The New York Post reported February 3, quoting an unnamed AOL official as saying the show content was "definitely" part of the contract - but that it didn't include singer Justin Timberlake removing part of Jackson's costume to expose her breast during the televised performance.
"While AOL was the sponsor of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, we did not produce it," AOL said in a statement. "Like the (National Football League), we were surprised and disappointed with certain elements of the show."
This news piggybacked other reports suggesting CBS, who telecast this year's Super Bowl game and halftime show, might consider dropping Jackson and Timberlake from its forthcoming Grammy Awards telecast. That prompted the Post to a large-type headline on page one February 3: "Tit For Tat!"
But AOL may have other problems around the show - some may think they're as much to blame for the debacle as might be MTV, which produced the show, and CBS. "The NFL, MTV, they all apologized," communications consulting agency Emerald Partners managing partner Fraser Seitel told the Post. "AOL should, too. It's not a good association."
AOL had hoped that sponsoring the halftime show would give their current $200 million advertising campaign a shot of rocket fuel - but the Jackson debacle meant the online giant couldn't even stream the show online, which was part of its original sponsorship deal.
Meanwhile, in a related development, TiVo said the Jackson-Timberlake spectacle meant almost twice as many TiVo viewers as anything which happened during the New England Patriots' hard-played win over the Carolina Panthers. TiVo households measured during the telecast indicated the Jackson-Timberlake incident triggered the largest spike in audience viewership TiVo had ever measured - a 180 percent spike, not to mention 12 percent higher than the 2003 Super Bowl's halftime show drew.
