Three weeks after calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c—” Samantha Bee’s TBS program “Full Frontal” is starting to see advertisers return.
Wednesday night’s episode saw an increase from bigger brand advertisers, including ETrade, Progressive, Kia, as well as Wonderful Pistachios and Grand Canyon University. Universal ran commercials for both “The First Purge” and “Skyscraper,” and Sony’s PlayStation also aired an ad. The two companies have advertised each of the past two weeks.
For the previous two weeks, “Full Frontal” had roughly one-third of its usual amount of national advertisers.
Bee set off a firestorm in her May 30 episode when she called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c—” for not doing more about President Trump’s immigration policies. But once Bee apologized during the subsequent episode on June 6, for using the slur, TBS had expected advertisers to return.
It’s still not at the levels prior to Bee using the slur to describe the first daughter: The May 30 episode during which Bee’s widely publicized slur aired featured ads from bigger brands like Orkin, Taco Bell, Jim Beam, Haagen Dazs, State Farm and Apple; none of these brands have advertised since. State Farm, along with Autotrader, suspended their advertising on the program.
But Wednesday night’s episode was a step in the right direction. The show is now taking a short summer break until July 18.