IOANNIS Kasoulides and his staff are said to be considering an advertising boycott on Antenna TV station, in retaliation for the channel’s alleged unequal coverage of the candidate.
The hard feelings between the two sides have been simmering for a while, and the Mail understands that the Kasoulides camp has complaints dating back to the euro elections of 2004.
Now, according to the offsite newsletter and Politis newspaper, Kasoulides may pull the plug on the ads, a last-ditch measure to get his point across.
The Mail yesterday contacted Loukas Fourlas, spokesman for Kasoulides, who offered a terse “no comment”.
But a telling sign is the absence of Kasoulides’ promo on Antenna, whereas it has been running on CyBC, Mega and Sigma.
It is believed that Kasoulides’ staff feel Antenna is downright hostile toward them.
The candidate and his people are said to be aggravated at Antenna’s perceived watering down of Kasoulides’ statements and appearances, dedicating more airtime to the two other hopefuls, Tassos Papadopoulos and Demetris Christofias.
There is also a perception among the Kasoulides camp that the channel is biased in favor of incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos.
During an election gathering on Monday, Kasoulides himself confirmed there was a problem with Antenna, but did not say whether he would sever all ties with the station.
As a presidential candidate, Kasoulides has yet to appear on Antenna, although his representatives have been hosted on talk shows. That could soon change, though, with a total embargo on the channel.
The Mail understands that the Kasoulides team would prefer not to burn that bridge, and that talks are going on behind the scenes to work things out.
The DISY-backed candidate has also complained of CyBC’s coverage, accusing the state broadcaster of a pro-government bias.
Kasoulides supporters went so far as to accuse CyBC producers of creative news editing. A few weeks ago, during a CyBC show debating an opinion poll, Christos Stylianides of DISY said that shots taken of an event were switched around, so that the end-result showed the audience laughing and gesticulating immediately after Kasoulides’ speech, the implication being that the listeners were making fun of the candidate.
But in the case of Antenna, a private channel, such allegations are that much harder to make.
