Taking on World Aids

This time, it's personal. Cable Positive enlisted famed director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth) to craft a series of public-service announcements, featuring Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Jennifer Esposito, Nathan Lane, Christopher Meloni and Jeffrey Wright, for a new AIDS/HIV awareness and prevention campaign. The celebrities are enveloped in a red background, symbolizing the color of the fight against HIV/AIDS, as they talk about the epidemic from statistical and human perspectives.

In closeups, they then highlight the enemies of AIDS — fear, apathy, denial and ignorance. The spots end with a personal statement: Wright refers to his role as Belize in Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America.

The PSAs support World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. Cable Positive said Adelphia Communications Corp., Time Warner Cable, Comcast Corp., Mediacom Communications Corp., Insight Communications Co. and Bresnan Communications are among the MSOs set to run the spots. Programmers engaged in the PSA fight include NBC Universal, MTV Networks, Fox Cable Networks, A&E Television Networks and Rainbow Media Holdings.