The ABC of Censorship
13May09

Last night’s episode of The Gruen Transfer stirred up a hornets nest of discussion after one of the advertisements for The Pitch segment was not shown as it was deemed offensive by ABC management. Instead, host Wil Anderson introduced the acceptable commercial by the other “contestant” in the segment and advised viewers that if they wished to see the censored commercial they could visit a website.

You can view The Foundry’s withdrawn commercial here.

The topic of the brief for the segment was to create an ad to “END SHAPE DISCRIMINATION” against fat people.

A statement from ABC’s director of television said:

The episode was reviewed the following day and the decision made that the broadcast of The Pitch segment would breach ABC Editorial Policies.

Instead, the same government funded broadcaster created a website and posted the TVC there along with a 15 minute debate around the actual commercial.

What I found interesting was that the majority of Twitter talk around The Foundry’s piece was actually in favour of the ad. Likewise, media news site Mumbrella has received 60 comments to date (over 2 posts on the topic) mostly in favour of the ad.

The 15 minute debate with The Foundry’s Adam Hunt on the antiprejudicead.net website was mostly centered around the panel’s opinions of the commercial. Todd Sampson and Bram Williams were strongly against the ad while Russell Howcroft seemed more supportive (for the record Howcroft was the only one who voted for the ad at the recording of the program). The whole debate really focussed on why the ad does or doesn’t work.

Williams and Sampson seemed to question the ad along the lines of “the audience might not be smart enough to get the message” of the confronting prejudice shown in the piece, that it might be misconstrued as endorsing prejudiced behaviour. That seems to be the height of arrogance to me. Williams made a similar comment on air during the show along the lines of “people are idiots”.

The big question that should have been discussed though is, was it right to censor the piece?

This is the same broadcaster that ran the controversial incest ad on Gruen only a few weeks earlier. It the same broadcaster that ony two nights earlier ran the 4 Corners rugby league sex story along with explicit images of genitalia and graphic, harrowing group sex / gang bang descriptions.

Why were those efforts acceptable and The Foundry’s ad not acceptable?

Sampson & Williams kept saying that the audience may not “get it” as if this were a real ad for a real campaign that was actually going to be shown more than once on commercial networks. That’s where I fell they miss the point. This ad, like all other ads in The Pitch, isn’t intended for commercial viewing. The whole concept is around “selling the unsellable” and then debating it.

Without wanting to generalise too much about demographics, The Foundry made a commercial to be aired on The Gruen Transfer on the ABC at 9.00pm. Its is largely accepted that the viewers are well educated and highly informed. Many are also from the advertising and media industry. Its not Neighbours.  The Foundry understood who the audience was for this show, but maybe the panelists forgot.

The issue for me is who decides what is acceptable ad what isn’t? I found both the incest ad and the The Foundry’s anti-fat discrimination ad to be confronting and thought provoking. Whether the execution was right is another debate. But they both deserved to be aired and the audience treated with enough respect to make their own decisions.

As a side note, the decision to run the ad and discussion on an accompanying website was inspired. The debate was some of the most interesting content to ever be shot on Gruen and took the show away from the cheap gags that tend to dominate the program. It demonstrated how networks can take viewers from one platform to another for more information, details, debate, exclusive content or even “censorable” content. There should be more of it.

So, what is your opinion of the censorship issue here? We don’t need more debate around the execution or whether the ad “worked”, I’d like to know whether you think ABC was right in censoring this piece.

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11 Responses to “The ABC of Censorship”

According to ABC’s Kim Dalton: “we felt that some of our viewers could be offended by it and find it insensitive and in some cases quite hurtful”.

Its arguable that much of what the ABC puts out to air could fail that test, even if not quite as deliberately provocative as this ad was. Yet the right of “some viewers” to be protected from hurtful content could have been maintained by the use of a warning before showing it.

Having said that, this ad will probably do more business for the company having been censored than if it had been allowed to broadcast. The attention will do the Gruen Transfer no harm either. As Conroy found out with the ACMA blacklist, censorship is a two-edged sword.

Comment by Derek Barry on May 14th, 2009

“Its is largely accepted that the viewers are well educated and highly informed. Many are also from the advertising and media industry.” Really? Isn’t Gruen one of the best rating shows on the ABC? That means it gets out of the echo chamber of blogs, social media and Twitter – which can only be a good thing.

As to censorship – isn’t it just a case of allowing the audience to opt-in? If you wanted to see it, you could. The only thing that could have been done better was to invite debate and conversation on the topic on their site (or via a Twitter style API).

Comment by Gavin Heaton on May 14th, 2009

Gavin

Yes I know the danger of generalising and that’s why I pre-empted that comment, but nonetheless Gruen does pull a pretty well educated demo even though it is high rating. (Yes its possible to have both occasionally).

Most people I have shown the ad to thought it was good and very effective. They were confronted by it but understood it.

Why not show it on air, with a warning, then intelligently debate it?

I definitely agree about including a facility for viewer debate on the website.

Comment by Craig Wilson on May 14th, 2009

For the record, Gruen had 1.2m audience.

The antiprejudice.net website DID have a comments section too (which I didnt see at first) and has received 500 comments thus far. Most I have read so far seem supportive of the ad and many question why it wasn’t aired.

Comment by Craig Wilson on May 14th, 2009

Loved the ad. I’m very fat and I’m tired of people thinking it’s OK to abuse me in public for it.

BTW I think the website was set up by Gruen Transfer producers Zapruder’s Other Films, not the ABC.

Comment by David Jackmanson on May 14th, 2009

I must be one of the only ones who didn’t think it was an effective ad then.

The 10 minute debate explaining the ad probably helped, but as a standalone piece it was nowhere near as effective as the work on racism that was shown in support of the strategy.

Why not show it on air? Perhaps ABC *were* showing an acute awareness of their audiences. By NOT showing it on air, they showed respect for those who may be offended, and by publishing it on the web they opened the door to those curious enough to check it out. And by shifting it to the web, it also opened the debate to a wider audience, rather than just the panel.

And, sneakily, this gives the Gruen producers a clear understanding of the power/potential of moving some of their programming towards the digital space. Very clever if you ask me.

Comment by Gavin Heaton on May 14th, 2009

Gavin

I don’t disagree that there MIGHT have been some strategy behind the censorship and subsequent posting on website.

For me the debate isn’t about the “effectiveness’ of the ad. We can debate every ad ever produced about that. There’s no right or wrong in opinions about an ad, except on the client’s scoreboard.

My question is censorship. The same thing we railed about regarding the proposed Internet Filter. (and yes I understand the diff btwn choosing to click on something online as opposed to viewing something on TV).

Comment by Craig Wilson on May 14th, 2009

@Derek Barry
Of course the “jokes” are insensitive. That’s the whole point. Watering it down wouldn’t have had the same effect, as Adam Hunt said in the discussion.

I’m glad ABC didn’t object to Zapruder creating a separate venue for viewing the ad. I think this approach might just have caused more discussion, with Aunty dodging the offense bullet. My opinion of the ABC has slid backwards though – banning the airing of the ad kind of says that they think their audience can’t handle this kind of debate, with these kind of delicate issues.

Comment by Natalie on May 14th, 2009

My personal opinion (disclaimer I work the ABC (not in tv) is that the discussion around the add would not fit into the 30 minute format of the show. And that discussion changes the add and how you view it.

If the ABC says anything it will get slammed either by interest groups or in a senate hearing and needs to be careful about how it broadcasts.

Congrats to those involved for putting the add online and bringing the panel back for an indepth discussion.

I do not believe it was censorship, the add is available now… just how is that censored?

Comment by Wolfcat on May 14th, 2009

Kim Dalton’s argument that “some of our viewers could be offended” is hypocrisy.

“Some of our viewers could be offended” by any number of things that are aired every day without an eyelid being blinked. I’m offended by pretty much everything Andrew Bolt says on Insiders. I’m offended by Virginia Trioli talking about her sagging breasts before 7am. (28 November 2008: check the tape!) But I don’t see Dalton rushing to protect me.

I thought the ABC was for all Australians — even those grown-up enough to have an adult conversation about the advertising industry. Clearly not.

Mr Dalton, if you’re so worried about offending people, just commission endless series of Spicks and Specks and other mindless entertainment. Bah! ABC TV really is turning into an adult-minding service.

Comment by Stilgherrian on May 14th, 2009

i find it disappointing that the advertisement was censored. it seems to be another example of the overly protective cushioning we seem to be living in nowadays. it is moments like the airings of these heavily confrontational pieces that help shock the general populous out of their comfort zone.
it was clever and cutting and needs to be shown to promote vigorous debate in public. not just in a closed studio environment.

Comment by mike hawkins on May 14th, 2009

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