ABC Cancels Reality Show - Doesn't Want To Offend Religious Right

[ruggerson]

So, ABC cancels a show, because it doesn't want to alienate bigots. A show which could actually have a positive effect on the dialogue in America. Maybe they should let NBC air it, since NBC has shown some guts lately.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/arts/television/21welc.html


Television Cul-de-Sac Mystery: Why Was Reality Show Killed?


By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: January 21, 2006
AUSTIN, Tex. - A year ago, Stephen Wright and his partner, John Wright, embarked on a sociology experiment that only a reality show producer could concoct: theirs was one of seven families competing to persuade the residents of a cul-de-sac here to award them a red-brick McMansion purchased on their behalf by the ABC television network.

The unscripted series, "Welcome to the Neighborhood," was heavily promoted and scheduled to appear in a summer time slot usually occupied by "Desperate Housewives." Stephen Wright, 51, who was already living in a nice house a few miles away with his partner and adopted son, said he participated primarily for one reason: to show tens of millions of prime-time viewers that a real gay family might, over the course of six episodes, charm a neighborhood whose residents overwhelmingly identified themselves as white, Christian and Republican.

As it turned out, the Wrights did win - beating families cast, at least partly, for being African-American, Hispanic, Korean, tattooed or even Wiccan - but outside of a few hundred neighbors (who attended private screenings last summer) and a handful of journalists, almost no one has been able to see them do so.

Ten days before the first episode was to be shown, ABC executives canceled "Welcome to the Neighborhood," saying that they were concerned that viewers who might have been appalled at some early statements made in the show - including homophobic barbs - might not hang in for the sixth episode, when several of those same neighbors pronounced themselves newly open-minded about gays and other groups.

[rodeodance]

1. guess they do want people to see a little reality--how the world is. (I kn

these reality shows are silly but still.....)

[patrice]

2. ALWAYS the lowest common denominator with Corporate Media.

"You can't handle such-and-such. Your attention span is very short. You don't like things that challenge your intelligence. You don't enjoy complexity. You can't control your own TV. You avoid content that is different. You think this. You feel that. This is what you want. . . .

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. If I understand correctly...

>>>>Maybe they should let NBC air it, since NBC has shown some guts lately.>>>>

...ABC owns the *rights* and is therefore unlikely to grant permission for anyone else to show it.... particularly if that understanding was part of whatever unholy agreement may have been arrived at behind the scenes between the religious barbarians and the corporate barbarians.

[ruggerson]

5. Yeah, of course, but NBC could buy it from them

Further in the article, it is theorized that ABC was very wary of alienating the religious right, because Disney was about to release "Narnia" which they were going to heavily promote to Christian conservatives.

Richard Land, the head of the Souther Baptists, is quoted as saying that if ABC had aired this show, the Baptists and others would have been very displeased and it would have hurt the marketing of Narnia.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Indeed. My point is...

that there may be a tacit understanding between ABC and the holy molies that the rights will NOT be sold to NBC or to anyone else and the production will be forever effectively deep-sixed.

No one will admit to this, of course. Time alone will tell.

[GrumpyGreg]

4. Frankly,it sounds like a just plain boring show to me.

[klebean]

7. James Dobson fears for the efficacy of Bandura's

social modeling theory - "we have empirical evidence..."

From the article:

Meanwhile, the neighbor who was the Wrights' earliest on-camera antagonist - Jim Stewart, 53, who is heard in an early episode saying, "I would not tolerate a homosexual couple moving into this neighborhood" - has confided to the producers that the series changed him far more than even they were aware.

No one involved in the show, Mr. Stewart said, knew he had a 25-year-old gay son. Only after participating in the series, Mr. Stewart said, was he able to broach his son's sexuality with him for the first time.

"I'd say to ABC, 'Start showing this right now,' " Mr. Stewart said in an interview at his oak kitchen table. "It has a message that needs to be heard by everyone." (Mr. Stewart first discussed his son publicly with The Austin American-Statesman.)

While other ABC shows have gay characters - including the new comedy "Crumbs" - "Neighborhood" features a real gay couple and their prospective neighbors in a continuing dialogue about homosexuality, including interpretations of the Bible.

<...>

But Mr. Wright said he took solace that through their participation in the series, he and his partner had had a positive impact on at least one relationship, that of Mr. Stewart and his son.

"We said at the outset that if we changed one person's heart or mind, it would be worth it," he said. "We have empirical evidence we did that."