The television ads, produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, take aim at fried-chicken chain KFC, which PETA says has failed to halt the cruel treatment of chicken by its suppliers.

The ad shows overfed chickens toppled on the ground of overcrowded sheds, unable to support their top-heavy bodies.

The video also depicts a chaotic scene of employees hurling live chickens by the handful into crates before they are taken to slaughterhouses.

Once there, they are hung upside by their legs on a moving conveyer belt, where they are stunned before their throats are slit, some while still conscious.

PETA spokesman Matt Prescott said the video was taken by undercover activists at a chicken supplier in Maryland.

The ads have previously run in Toronto and some U.S. markets, although some markets, such as Cleveland, have refused to run them because they are too graphic.

Dressed in a demure pink jacket, Ms. Anderson, who starred in the TV beach drama Baywatch, urged viewers to boycott the fast-food chain until it makes strides in how the millions of chickens it sells each year are bred and killed.

Ms. Anderson said the main ingredient of Colonel Sanders's famed Southern fried chicken is cruelty.