totally figures.

I saw the trailer a few weeks back and I am down to see it. Fuck TV. Don't they know everyone is ammune to tv ads anyway? Let's hope they leek the original ad on youtube.

immune and leak.

NBC is a for-profit business that broadcasts on reserved public frequencies...the only time they have to be completely unbiased and neutral is as a non-profit organization. they do have to be somewhat fair as a public trust but don't have to show ads for anything.

in order to make money, you have to sell ad time and keep people happy. as you've noticed too much of america is ignorant and still hates dixie chicks for doing what's right and voicing how they felt. if you air an ad that supports a movie about how they were wronged and half your audience still hates them, you lose viewers and are less likely to sell ad time.

the whole decision is capitalism at it's finest. NBC is essentially 'voicing' their opinion that the dixie chicks were wrong to prevent alienating viewers, even though they actually said nothing.

i don't think it was stated that if all the networks refused to show it it was censorship. he said if the site was forced to be taken down, etc, that it becomes censorship. but a company in the business of making money making a financial decision is not censorship. otherwise, like colinism said, the KKK and every other group of hate-mongers would have rights to run all their ads as well with no repercussions.

The post you quoted was a response to a response. My original response was to this statement:

My question to him was, essentially: "I agree that commercial broadcasters don't have to take every advertisement. I am not argunig that such refusal would necessarily be considered censorship. But how would "all the media outlets" (his phrase) doing the same now be considered censorship?"

I was questioning two apparent implications:
a) If one is ok, how is many not ok?
b) Does that mean that you think censorship only exists in the case of total supression?

I'm not sure where he came up with the "hate groups suing for equal time" bit from what I asked.

it's really hard to explain it because it's such a fine line to me but it can go both ways.

in my eyes, if every media outlet makes an honestly independent call to not air the ad driven by personal gain, that's not censorship. if there was a meeting between all the networks and they decided as a whole, there is no more personal financial interest involved because they are siding with their competition against a common 'enemy' (for lack of better term) and that falls under censorship in my book.

the website comment to me was implying someone forcibly removing the site...censorship by any means.

Which was why, in a later post I said that while the individual stations' actions may or may not be considered censorship (not necessarilty illegal, either), deciding as a whole would be collusion or conspiracy - which would definitely make the joint action illegal.
Again, censorship does not require total suppression in order to exist.