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Feb 20 2008 10:43AM EST

Did VH1 Slap a Gag on Pro-NBC Bloggers?

Sign BWE.tv's Petition to Save Friday Night Lights

I've used this space to urge you to start watching Friday Night Lights before NBC up and cancels it. Unbeknownst to me, the folks behind VH1's Best Week Ever blog were doing the same thing over on their site -- until the network (maybe, allegedly) made them stop.

BWE.tv's "Save Friday Night Lights campaign included a petition, a slew of post-'em-yourself banners, and a call for fans to send light bulbs to NBC (a la the stunts that won reprieves for Jericho and Roswell).

But then the campaign came to an abrupt and mysterious halt, and the petition, which had received over 10,000 signatures, was taken down. Defamer investigated:

According to Viacom insiders familiar with the situation, the campaign immediately began to draw the ire of upper management the second it was launched. You see, Friday Night Lights airs on Friday nights, the same night that Best Week Ever premieres a new episode each week. Although the shows are not direct competitors, Vh1 production execs were less than thrilled that the flagship site of their new Digital Programming unit was using Viacom funds and bandwidth to promote a show that airs on NBC.

I emailed BWE's managing editor, Alex Blagg, to check Defamer's claim, but he declined to comment. A VH1 spokeswoman claims, not entirely convincingly, that the "Save Friday Night Lights campaign "was a meant to be a fun, timely piece on the website. It was never meant to be long term. It was just a short term stunt on the website."

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