Even in Britain there is a long standing tradition of the most merciless lampooning of the Royals by comedians and satirists, including on BBC programmes, which is what made this story sound strange to me. It’s not like the Queen goes around making “decrees” about what people can or can’t do. She doesn’t really have the power to do that. Nonetheless, the Royals do have some influence I suppose, and it seems like in this case the BBC did go along with Palace wishes out of deference. Special occasion and all that.
Darkest Peru.
And he’s an illegal immigrant.
I still remember an episode of Spitting Image:
Although, Sarah Ferguson seems to be the most level-headed of everyone who’s spent time in the fishbowl of English royalty.
Well, the recent edition of Have I got News for You, on the BBC, did use footage of the wedding for satirical purposes, so either it’s not banned or the BBC are enormous rebels.
So perhaps the lesson is that a fake news show will take the news, if it’s funny. Or that the BBC can use footage of of the royal wedding for satirical purposes but the ABC can’t?
[QUOTE=Baron Greenback]
Paddington Bear isn’t British, he’s from Peru!
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Darkest Peru.
And he’s an illegal immigrant.
[/QUOTE]
“Come say hello to my leetle friend!”
I think ABC wanted to actually have access to the live feed of the wedding, so they could have comedians making fun of it in ‘real time’. The royals said they’d only give access to the live-feed in return for an agreement not to use it as satire. But once its been broadcast, presumably anyone (including the Daily Show) can use clips for whatever they want.
So meh, hardly the end of free speech. Compared to the restrictions the NFL puts on footage of football games, its pretty mild stuff.