TTC has no desire for pro-adultery streetcars

TORONTO – Toronto Transit Commission staff are recommending the commission reject ads promoting the Ashley Madison Agency – an online dating site that promotes adultery.

The ads would wrap the exterior of a TTC streetcar with the website’s trademark phrase – "Life is short. Have an affair.”

The phrase would also occupy every ad slot inside the vehicle.

The company said if the initial ads were successful in January, it would enter into a deal with the TTC to see a total of 10 streetcars outfitted in a similar manner, amounting to a $200,000 influx to the commission.

But TTC spokesman Brad Ross says staff have recommended against running the ads, which have come under fire from pro-family organizations.

That prompted an offer by Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman Friday to pay anyone riding a streetcar bearing the agency’s ads 50 cents of the $3 cost to ride.

"It is becoming apparent that the TTC is going to backpedal out of this deal. In response, Ashley Madison is now offering the TTC and its riders additional payment on top of the original ad charge and giving the public a fare reduction and a chance to have a say about whether the ads should be allowed,” Biderman said.

"Anyone who rides an AshleyMadison.com wrapped streetcar starting in January will not have to pay the 25 cent rate hike, plus they will get an additional fare reduction. Instead of paying the new $3.00 fare they will only have to pay $2.50. AshleyMadison.com will cover the difference of 50 cents per rider.”

Pro-family organizations were “shocked and outraged” that the TTC was considering plastering streetcars with the advertisements.

"To blatantly advertise cheating in this manner where people of all ages, including children, are open to it, means people may be incredibly offended,” said Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

Ross said the ads are before the commission’s advertising review committee, which has the final say.

Ross said the committee is to make a decision Friday.

Ashley Madison was launched in 2002 by Toronto entrepreneur Darren Morgenstern, and became the first website to connect would-be cheaters.

In 2007, as membership climbed, Morgenstern sold his site to Avid Life Media, a Toronto company that owns and operates several other websites devoted to sexual encounters between adults, including Eroticy.com, CougarLife.com, and EstablishedMen.com.

Ashley Madison now boasts more than 4.8 million members.

The controversy it has stirred up has garnered coverage on Canadian and American television shows, including Good Morning America, Larry King Live and The Ellen Degeneres Show. After Tiger Woods’s extramarital activities became public, TMZ.com reported that Ashley Madison offered Woods $5-million for "advertisement, endorsement, sale and promotion” of the website.

But so far, the site hasn’t had much luck in its bids to advertise on TV and radio. Earlier this year, CTV rejected an Ashley Madison commercial that would have run during the Super Bowl.

This isn’t the first time the TTC has courted controversy surrounding the kinds of ads it chooses to run. In April, the Commission was forced to pull several "suicide” ads that depicted a kitchen radio about to jump off a TTC subway platform because of an apparent poor selection of music and programs. The ads, for Virgin Radio, were accompanied by the words, "Give your radio a reason to live.”