Ahh, but Montu
What you and others out there need to understand is that Disney is a business. Like it or not, their goal at the end of the day, is to create revenue. To drive sales, thru integrated marketing, commercials, emails, etc. etc.,etc. I assure you they are not the ONLY company out there using Christmas as an opportunity to make money. Again, I will say that there will always be those out here who will find fault with Disney NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO. I don't agree with everything they do either. But in my original post on this thread, I mentioned how I KNEW that someone would start this thread either while watching the parade, or just after. Yes, they didn't own ABC when the parade first aired. And while they may not have had to pay for the commercial time, they most CERTAINLY would have had to pay ABC for the airtime of the telecast itself. Within that contract would lay the agreements for any/all commercial air time. I know this because the retailer I work for, a major retailer in the industry in which I work, does the same thing. Any time that we air any type of "special" or are "part" of a special, we also work out financial obligations regarding our "right" as it were, to air commercials marketing our company.
Again, nothing in life is free. To think that Disney would have been able to air this, not having already owned ABC, without a major hit from the hip, is naive(spelled right?).
In the end, Disney did a great job with the parade, and let the nay-sayers find something else to nit-pick about. Lord knows they'll find SOMETHING to complain about.
