Dan Cathy is being held up as a victim of people wanting to suppress his right to speak freely. The Salt Lake City NBC affiliate is flat out refusing to air the new program The New Normal, because “the scenes may be too explicit or the characterizations might seem offensive.” or because or because
No problem with Law and Order:SVU,Grimm,Revolution, or Dateline/Rock Center all of which are violent, sometimes extremely, and bloody, but a couple in love wanting to start a family? So Sorry, inappropriate…
If I were NBC, I’d pull the affilation, or not renew it when the agreement ends, but that’d send the fundies howling against the liberals in the entertainment industry.
I find NBC’s decision to be a cowardly caving in to bigotry and would be similarly disgusted if they refused to air a TV show which features a couple consisting of a black man and a white woman.
However, there is a difference between a private business making a business decision and state and local governments actively trying to prevent a business from operating because they object to the CEO donating to groups they don’t like and saying things they don’t like.
During the first season of NYPD Blue the Dallas ABC affiliate refused to play it for essentially the same reasons the SLC NBC affiliate doesn’t want to air The New Normal. i.e. They objected to the content shown during family viewing times. So the show aired in Dallas on channel 21 which was an independent channel at the time (later a UPN affiliate).
If you were NBC you’d probably just do what ABC did. You’d let some other station air the show. This kind of thing happens from time to time. If the show is a big enough hit the NBC station will probably start airing it. Just like ABC in Dallas started airing NYPD Blue.
Sorry. This is Great Debates. Rants go in The BBQ Pit and discussions of TV shows go in Cafe Society. This looks a bit more like the former than the latter, so the Pit it is.
In fact, a whole bunch of ABC affiliates refused to screen NYPD Blue early on. And most of them shelved their principles pretty quickly when it became one of the biggest shows on television.
What do you mean the shelved their principles? Their principles are to make money! They just realized that they had more to lose by not airing the show than by airing it.
Sure, but they shelved the principles that they had proclaimed when they first refused to air the show. There was lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth about “family values” and the decline of morality and all of that.
I understand that corporations are basically amoral institutions whose purpose is to maximize value for their shareholders. i just roll my eyes at the way they are happy to spout morality and principle when (they think) those things happen to accord with the bottom line, but to quickly toss the same things aside when they don’t, as if there were no inconsistency and as if people can’t see what they’re doing.
Why are we objecting to the word “censorship”? The guy at the local NBC affiliate removed a show from the lineup because he found its contents to be objectionable. I don’t really have a problem with that, but it seems to be a pretty clear case of censorship as I usually use the word.
Its not gov’t censorship, but I don’t think gov’t involvement is necessary for saying something is “censored”.
A private party has no obligation to buy a product. When I don’t buy Fifty Shades of Grey, I’m not censoring it. If I’m a book store owner, I cant’ stock every book in print. If I’m a TV station, I can’t broadcast every show that is offered.
But if I’m the state, I can outlaw certain works of art. That is censorship.
Do affiliates pay their parent networks by the show? I guess I assumed that by becoming an affiliate they got access to the entire broadcast lineup, and that that was the point of being an affiliate.
It’s not NBC’s decision. They can’t make an affiliate carry programming that the affiliate doesn’t want. For the record, KSL is owned by Bonneville International, whose majority stockholder is the Mormon Church. Complain to them.
If they aren’t airing the show because they don’t think it will do as well as another show in their market, I agree that’s not censorship.
I read the point of the OP as being an accusation that they aren’t making a business decision about what will play in their market, but rather not airing it due to concerns about the morality of its content. I have no idea if that accusation is true or not, but I think calling it an accusation of censorship is using the word correctly.
With the exception of public broadcasting, affiliates do not pay for programming; rather, they get paid to air programming. However, they do have the right to refuse to air programming that they believe is unsuitable for their market.
I’m also 100% sure that, while Bonneville’s decision is ostensibly about morality, the underlying reasoning has to do with the fear of losing revenue from local advertisers, some of whom would just as soon also not be associated with this show for fear of losing customers who do care about morality. Losing local advertisers has a longer-term effect because those advertisers might be slow to return KSL and to spend a bigger percentage of their ad budgets on other stations or on the local cable system. There’s also the real risk of losing viewers, which translates to losing ad revenue as rates are set during sweeps periods.
That being said, KSL can choose to air the show after prime time or on a sub-channel, if they have any. This way, they’re in compliance with their contract with NBC, and fewer children will see the show.