Music channel censorship

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Pete
Posts: 7589
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

Right then - I really cannot understand the current censorship in place on music channels - namely emap ones.

Now what on earth is the point of pixelating breaking glass? It looked daft enough on Robbie Williams' video but currently they have Avril Lavigne punching a mirror and only where her hand hits being blurred. Now not only can you tell what is happening but you can see everything around it breaking so what the hell is the point of pixelating it?

Also you have "This Love" by Maroon 5. There is one line in that goes thus
"pressure on her hips
sinking in my fingertips"

now on TMF (MTV) for some reason this word is missed out although the music continues behind it. On The Hits though there is a horrid removal which sounds like MHEG breakup, there is just a second of total silence. Also on Hits the word "coming" is skipped in the same shoddy way from "keep her coming every night" and it actually makes it sound as if it would be "fucking" the way it's done. Yet on TMF this is not censored and I would view it as more offensive than "sinking in my fingertips"

Now there was also the absurd censorship of James from Busted's mouth as he uttered the word "bitch" in the vid for Who's David. Now I presume this was done at their end as it also appeared on TMF at late night (when they have no problems letting all the bare tits on 50 Cent's vid flop around).

I'm just wondering why this is viewed as necessary, especially when fuck and shit during rap records and that Eamon tripe are so obvious and at times come very close to being the word itself.

What is the point? It's like being in American where they censor all the t-shirts and faces of people in the background.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
DAS
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Joined: Tue 19 Aug, 2003 16.35
Location: The Kingdom of Leather

Well it's nonsense really - but then when have broadcast guidelines ever made sense?

The only possible explanation I would spew out if I were the PR guy is that deliberately blanking out words or obscuring Avril's angriness sends out the message that it isn't acceptable and shouldn't be copied. But then I suppose it "glamourises" it. I don't know.

The kind of problem the channels have is that swear words just can't be broadcast, but to make them unnoticeable would mean blanking out a whole verse - and that's just as unacceptable. What doesn't help is that with songs like "Fluck It", the DJs on Radio 1 tend to make a point of highlighting the fact they can't say Fluck. So then the kids notice it more.
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Cheese Head
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Location: Rockhampton, Australia

Funny you should mention the over censored condition of music videos, when on Kerrang Radio, little of it is 'bleeped' as it were. Pointless really.
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Pete
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

Well bearing in mind Avril Latrine's "hard bitch wannabe" image, she may have some sort of profanity written on her hand which would be why they blank it over.
She hasn't - TMF show it and the pixels only appear as the glass breaks.
The daftest case of music censorship came from TMF where they totally changed Pink's "Just like a pill" and even removed the word "morphine".
Now that was dreadful "she's being a little which" I could have accepted but "she's being a little switch"?? Is she a debit card or something?
Anyhow. I much prefer Steps videos where there's no swearing at all. :D
well not by the group but there is penty from the viewers...
"He has to be larger than bacon"
Chris
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 19.03
Location: Surrey

I've also wondered why they have done this as well. Some of the edits are cleverely done and manage to obscure the offending word sufficiently but others are totally shite, making the offending words sound even more obvious to the attentive listener by using bleeps or bizarre sound effects and making the sentence or phrase in the lyric sound stupid or not make sense.

I have heard quite a few of these edits on TV and Radio and they vary in quality. Take for example, the Robbie Williams song, Come Undone. The videos on the Hits and TMF are normally pixellated in certain places. On Radio 1 when he says 'shit' they just go 'shh' and when he says 'fuck' they 'fff' and it sound really obvious that there is a rude word there. On Radio 2, the edit sounds even more stupid, so instead of saying 'so fuck you all' it says 'good luck you all'. When he says 'shit' they have edited it down to 'it'.
I'm just wondering why this is viewed as necessary, especially when fuck and shit during rap records and that Eamon tripe are so obvious and at times come very close to being the word itself.
Again the radio edits sound even more stupid than the original album versions with the expletives in. The radio edit of the Nelly track, Ride with Me has loads of different ways in which they have edited out the rude words or phrases - bleeps, cutting the word whilst keeping the music in the background, using DTMF tones and various sound effects. However the most funny part of it all is that they forgot to edit out some of the words in the last 2 verses which they did edit out in previous verses. Why bother if you can't do a job properly? Why don't they just think of the children? :roll:
nwtv2003
Posts: 700
Joined: Tue 20 Jan, 2004 22.20
Location: Granadaland

Some can be quite stupid to be honest, here's some I remember

Busted played 'What I go to school for' in the Nickelodeon studio a couple of years ago and they had to take the word 'ass' out of the song, even though I've heard words like crap on there.

When The Box showed Rock DJ by Robbie Williams a few years ago, it would play the song and then blur the screen when the gory stuff came on, then as ever an apology caption was shown for a few seconds, though the stupid thing was they did this post bloodshed.

Stan by Enimem, it is a fantastic song with a great video, at the time I remember MTV did a good edit of it for daytime use, though they cut some of it, it didn't look shoddy. Though when I saw it on TMF at night, they played the video in full, but they take out all swearwords and blur a clip that has a table full of envolopes and magazines with blood all over them. Or the bit when Stan is driving and is shouting about a song by Phil Collins, is just silence, with stuff like: 'Well I know * and you * * *' etc, thus making it look very poor. Though I can't remember what channel it was said it would play it in full, but they used a badly edited version for late night use.

I was in a music store (Can't remember what one) but that played a song over its radio with plenty of swearing in it.
Neil Jones
Posts: 661
Joined: Thu 11 Sep, 2003 20.03
Location: West Midlands

I remember back in 1995 when MTV edited a Take That video in the aftermath of the group splitting up. It was an ever so shocking event that they edited out :roll:

The song was a cover of 'How Deep Is Your Love?', and Take That's last single to be released.

MTV edited the video, persumably just for daytime, where the lady puts a fork next to Gary's face. Said apparatus turned into a mass pixel show instead and looked ugly. A later edit saw the fork edited out properly and another portion of video substituted instead...

How shocking :shock:
DAS
Posts: 925
Joined: Tue 19 Aug, 2003 16.35
Location: The Kingdom of Leather

Well Vanessa Carlton's "Pretty Baby" (which I bet not many of you have seen, especially in the UK) had to be edited for MTV to even allow it to air. The premise of the video was that her boyfriend was walking out on her. To cut a long story short, it culminated in our Vanessa walking up the stairs with a roll duck tape and strapping the poor git to the chair. MTV accepted the edited version whereby all you could see was his terrified eyes - and this edit was probably more suggestive (and better?) than the original. Incidentally, MTV's blanket policy was/is that bondage cannot be shown - which I suppose is fair enough really.
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