The National Rifle Association is using six cable TV shows its produces or sponsors to convey its talking points to viewers in more than 30 million homes, Reuters reported.
The shows, which air on the Outdoor and Sportsman channels, have ramped up their pro-NRA rhetoric as President Barack Obama has pushed for gun control. Last week he signed an executive order aimed at curbing gun violence.
"Assault weapon is a made-up name for a gun I can ban," Cam Edwards (pictured left), host of the Sportsman Channel's "Cam & Company," said on a recent show. Later in the program, he read the NRA's statement responding to Obama.
Edwards has good reason to toe the party line -- NRA News produces his show.
The NRA has ramped up its gun advocacy campaigns to fight the tide of public opinion in favor of controlling guns after the Newtown, Conn. school shootings that killed twenty children and six women who tried to protect them.
Other programs on Outdoor Channel are not subtle about their attachment to the NRA, Reuters noted.
"Friends of the NRA," hosted by former baseball player Matt Duff and champion shooter Jessie Harrison Duff, has raised more than $200 million for the NRA's training and education programs, according to the lobbying group's website.
The two hosts visit NRA banquets around the country.
On his show, Edwards claims he is "not a spokesman for the NRA," according to Reuters.
The NRA did not immediately respond to emails from TheWrap requesting comment.
Among advertisers buying time from the NRA are Smith & Wesson and Remington Arms Co., Reuters said.
Graig Hale, the Sportsman Channel's vice president of programming, said the audience makeup is mostly men 25 to 54, a desirable demographic that allows the channel to charge high rates.
