The story about Tim Minchin having a song about Jesus cut from an ITV show reminds me of a time, long ago, when I was launching a BBC website about Vampires one Easter.
It had been live 15 minutes before I got bollocked. I got bollocked for everything, but this bollocking was from someone very high up in iBBC.co.uk who'd been on a management training course I can only imagine was called the "Deep fried chocolate shit sandwich". The phone call went like this:
iBOSS: "Hey! Love the design of your vampires site.... but I need you to take it down immediately."
ME: "What?"
iBOSS: "It's a lovely design and great content, but it just seems inappropriate and culturally insensitive. We can't have content about Vampires going out at this time of year."
ME: "Sorry?"
iBOSS: "It's great to see such innovation, but I'm afraid Easter is the wrong time for the subject matter of Vampires. In fact, if it was done by someone else, I could call them deliberately offensive to Christians."
ME: "What? Wait. Jesus wasn't a vampire!"
iBOSS: "You're a very clever person, but I must say that you are now twisting my words. But yes, we just cannot cause any offence through the association between Jesus and Vampires."
ME: "What association?"
iBOSS: "Your association. It's very clear. The BBC just cannot broadcast anything to do with Vampires at Easter. It's a rule."
ME: "Is it?"
iBOSS: "Well of course it is, obviously."
ME: *thumbing through the Radio Times* "Then why is BBC Two showing a season of Hammer films over the Bank Holiday weekend?" I list the titles of the films, ending with "...and Taste the Blood of Dracula on Easter Monday."
iBOSS: "oh. Well, perhaps I was mistaken. But anyway, just thought I should call and say what a lovely design it was. Well done."
*click*"
No comments:
Post a Comment