Altered Ads

[gbsncmtr]

Subway has a great spot out right now that I'm hearing on a number of stations. It's the one that takes place at a fast food drive-in. They order double chins, thunder thighs, etc. Near the end of the ad there is a line where the lady says she wants a "pa-donk-a-donk-butt." The employee responds, "Did you mean a pa-doooonk-a-donk-butt?" It's really a funny commercial.

Anyway . . . I heard this spot on KLTY this afternoon, and the word "butt" was completely edited out of the spot. I guess they feel it's too strong for their "family friendly" image . . . and I'd have to agree with them.

Is it common for altered versions of commercials to be aired on stations with different formats?

You suppose those late night commercials we hear on KLLI can be watered down for KLTY???

 

[MikeShannon914]

OK, let's say you're "ABC Family," the cable network that, I believe, was once "The Family Channel," and was "CBN" before that. What language qualifies for a cut within a movie? So I'm watching parts of "Back to the Future" on ABC Family last weekend. Any reference to God, Jesus, 'jeez,' 'holy' or similar is edited out. However, "bastard," "Hell," "bitch" and "son of a bitch" are left in there. So whose 'family' is being watched out for? This is the same channel that still runs the dinosaur "700 Club" during latenights. Sounds a little hypocritical to me.

I think there's a happy medium in there somewhere. Cutting out "butt" is pretty silly, to me. What's acceptable in its place...buns? And like some point-of-purchase crap isn't going to be sitting on the counter or hanging in the window at every Subway store with this latest slice 'o intelligence with "poo-donk-o-butt" written on it. What, should KLTY hand out blinders so the children can't see it?

 

[Robert Bass]

What I think is really sad about this is that this whole “family friendly” thing is getting overblown. I was asked to trim songs from the list with “curse words”. By curse, I mean “damn” and “hell”. This is the result of some supposed listener complaints which I didn’t hear directly. Good grief, what’s next? We can’t play songs about religion and heaven during the holidays? :

Here’s a sample of what I’ve had to cut, to give you an idea:

Sister Golden Hair – America “Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed…”

With A Little Luck – Wings “With a little luck we can make this whole damn thing work out.”

Moonlight Feels Right – Starbuck “I play the radio on southern stations, 'cause southern bells are hell at night”.

Those aren’t exactly curse words in context, in my opinion. That’s pretty tame stuff when you consider music today has deteriorated to stuff like “Yo I slapped my &%%* &^%^&” etc…

R

 

[MikeShannon914]

Wow, I always thought it was "Southern bells are HEARD at night."

Let me sift through the lyrics of "It's So Nice to Be with You" and "The Last Song (I'll Ever Write for You)" and "The Other Side of the Mountain" and see if I can find ANYTHING objectionable in there. I'd sure hate to see THOSE dropped! ;D

If you wanted to "save" those songs, literally and figuratively, you could run them through Cool Edit and just delete the harmful words. I'd hate to hear you do that, but it'd be worth still having those songs around, to me at least. I'm still not used to Steve Miller getting his "funky KICKS goin' down in the city," but I'll live. Call up Pete Thomson over at KLTY and ask him about how KAFM/KZPS used to reloop songs in the mid-80s to take out not only objectionable words, but objectionable ideas. As KAFM PD, he was under an edict from the Mormon owners (Bonneville) to make the whole Top 40 clean for young, impressionable GenXers. And you can look around you now, 20 years later, and see what good it did. Everyone loves each other. No one cusses. No one lies, cheats or steals. Whew, thank Allah. What a lifesaver that Night Ranger wasn't given free will to tell me how to "learn about love/in the back of a Chevrolet."

So I guess AC/DC is off the table when you all ever go 80s.

 

[Robert Bass]

Mike,

Actually I did try the song editing approach, but so far it's not going well. I was able to save Sister Golden Hair by backmasking it. I think it is ridiculous though because we're talking about music we have been playing for almost two decades!

R

 

[uppendowndadial]

Backmasking is exactly what I had to do, but not on songs...on the TV sweeps spots. Seems like The WB or one of the talk shows would always have to have "sl*t", "b***h", or "w***e" in their dialog during sweeps month. I was always amazed that we had sunk so low that language like that was accepted without question.

 

[Robert Bass]

No kidding!

My father was a high school teacher in the Dallas ISD, and he could tell you stories about how many of the students responded when asked not to use language like the B, F & S words. He said most of them would throw out a “What are you talking about?” type of reaction.

R

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

Damn. You mean KEOM won't play "
Elton John- "The B*TCH IS BACK'?
ROLLING STONES-"B*TCH"?
'ROD STEWARTS - "AINT LOVE A B*TCH"?
ZZ TOPP -"TUSH"?<btw for those scoring at home when that song came out we could only say "ZZ TOPP"
Isley Brothers- "Fight the Power"? .."this B---sh*_ coming down"

Look at the bright side,you would have had an editing nightmare if you had a country format.

 

[Robert Bass]

Well in our Crossover Country / Mellow AC days, there were a few here and there we had to omit (think splice off the Century 21 Music Reel).

When we finally moved to CD’s, I remember once playing Survivor’s The Search Is Over. As most of you probably know, the song contains the following lyric:

“So if you really love me, show me that you give a damn.”

When I mentioned that to our PD at the time, Mike Wolfe said, “Yeah but it’s a great song”.

R

 

[Robert Bass]

Damn. You mean KEOM won't play "
Elton John- "The B*TCH IS BACK'?
ROLLING STONES-"B*TCH"?
'ROD STEWARTS - "AINT LOVE A B*TCH"?
ZZ TOPP -"TUSH"?<btw for those scoring at home when that song came out we could only say "ZZ TOPP"
Isley Brothers- "Fight the Power"? .."this B---sh*_ coming down"

Or

Bad Blood - John & Sedaka
Rich Girl - Hall & Oates
Kodachrome - Paul Simon (it ain't just because of the word "crap" either.)
Sunshine - Johnathan Edwards

And up until now, we were able to spin

Carefree Highway - Gordon Lightfoot
Teach Your Children - CSN&Y

R

 

[Steve Eberhart]

The thing is this: It is THEIR radio station and THEY decide what goes on THEIR airwaves, plain and simple.

If the word "butt" or any other is deemed inappropriate, it is certainly within their perrogative to edit that or deny the spot entirely. Stations do it all the time.

I can recall many times when clients would come to KVIL trying to buy airtime and were turned down because the spot was either offensive in some way, did not fit the format, or was irritating to the demo. Often a national spot would be re-cut with in-house talent to conform to the standards and/or format.

One specific point in mind at KVIL was a time when Bachman Turner Overdrive had some huge hits and KVIL wouldn't play them because they didn't fit the format. Mercury records tried to do an "end-around" by purchasing a spot buy on the station featuring a spot that included a heavy dose of their current hit. They assumed it would be the only way to get their song exposed on KVIL, which at the time was at the top of the ratings in the market. The spot was turned down as is, with the offer to re-cut it without the song. Of course Mercury declined!

The zit creams were always trying to buy ad time at KVIL and were routinely declined, because, first the spots were usually teen oriented and second, the spots were usually terrible.

I've had the argument with others on the subject of music as well. It's YOUR air - you and only you decide what goes on it - no one is a prisoner to the charts, record companies, other station airplay or anything else. Same with spots.

Think of how much time and effort KLTY puts into marketing that "family friendly" image. One inappropriate song or spot can ruin all that effort within 60 seconds!


What you don't play usually won't kill you - what you DO play very well can.

 

[SmokeRing]

I can recall many times when clients would come to KVIL trying to buy airtime and were turned down because the spot was either offensive in some way, did not fit the format, or was irritating to the demo. Often a national spot would be re-cut with in-house talent to conform to the standards and/or format.

I wonder how often 103.7 is willing to turn down a spot these days. ;D

 

[Robert Bass]

The thing is this: It is THEIR radio station and THEY decide what goes on THEIR airwaves, plain and simple.

Ahh but Steve, the FM and AM bands really belong to the public, so shouldn't it be up to the listeners (I mean plural, as in thousands) to decide what is or is not appropriate?

Besides, we've reached the point where rather than just change the channel, people feel the need to complain.

R

 

[EbolaMonkey]

Besides, we've reached the point where, rather than just change the channel, people feel the need to complain.

As they should.

 

[Robert Bass]

Besides, we've reached the point where, rather than just change the channel, people feel the need to complain.

As they should.

If you let ONE listeners complaint dictate what you air, that's heading on a very dangerous path of censorship, not to mention it is letting one listener program for everyone else.

R

 

[EbolaMonkey]

If you let ONE listener's complaint dictate what you air, that's heading on a very dangerous path of censorship, not to mention it is letting one listener program for everyone else.

You misunderstand me. I didn't say you had to change a single thing because of a complaint. I also wasn't talking about one complainer. I wrote, "as they should." The airwaves belong to the public, and anyone at anytime should feel free to complain about something they hear on the air. The more the merrier.

There's no room for thin skin when you are targeting mass audiences. Be glad someone cares enough about your programming to complain.

 

[KPLEXCOMPLEX]

Absolutely! "It's their station" is taken from a consultant/owner/corp point of view. The freq belongs to the public who allows"their station" to be on it. With that being said, George Carlins 7 words shouldn't be on the air,unless its satellite ,cable, or internet.some decorum is called for.
Now words like DAMN (which I might add to those easily offended folks who are righteous and God Fearing,etc.")is in the Good Book itself,several times over as well as various mentions of sex.
So editing that word " DAMN" out of songs because one parent or two find its offensive ,yet their young one downloads a hip hop song or a country song which contains more offensive colorful metaphors, is damn ridiculous.

I find it amusing that KLTY would edit spots due to words like BUTT. If you have ever walked the hallways of Salem and the various stations there,you would hear the language fly...a lot!

 

[317C50KW]

I'm old school about this, but I have alerted stations about content of some of the advertising that I've placed and or sent out that I felt was innappropriate to their specific audience. I've done that for KLTY many times. Occassionaly one of the "secular" stations will express a concern about something and I'll work with them to resolve the problem.

It makes good business sense to do it that way.

 

[jacojunkie]

Radio Disney makes sure the wording in their spots doesn't directly instruct kids to do anything such as come out for an appearance or calling in for a contest. They have to dance around it saying "If your parents will let you," or somethin like that.