TV & VIDEO - Jan. 22, 1991

Upbeat Ad Scrapped: General Electric on Monday suspended an upbeat television commercial featuring its joint venture with a Hungarian lighting company after the Soviet army’s violent crackdown in Lithuania. “In response to world events, GE for the present time has discontinued its TV commercial about its recent joint venture with the Hungarian lighting company, Tungsram,” GE spokesman Jack Batty said. The GE commercial celebrated its joint venture in Hungary in the context of the fall of the Berlin Wall and a new light of freedom shining in Eastern Europe. GE announced the venture in November, 1989, as the Berlin Wall was crumbling; the ad aired on U.S. television for nine months.