Los Angeles, USA - NBC has drawn protests this week from religious conservatives over the content of two television shows, but for different reasons — in one instance for excluding references to God and in the other for possibly including religious imagery.
The disputes, over the network’s proposed broadcast of a Madonna concert that includes a crucifixion scene and over its cutting religious references from the animated children’s show “VeggieTales,” have some critics charging that NBC maintains a double standard toward Christianity.
Alan Wurtzel, an NBC executive who oversees broadcast standards, said in an interview on Friday that there was no double standard. Rather, he said, the network was evaluating each show individually.
In the case of “VeggieTales,” which its creators have said “isn’t a show about values, it’s a show about God,” Mr. Wurtzel said he felt the network was being unfairly punished.
“We frequently get criticized for putting on programming that does not deal with traditional values or religious themes,” he said. “Here is a show that clearly does that, and the criticism is that we didn’t go far enough.”
“VeggieTales,” which NBC added to its Saturday morning line-up this month, was originally created for home video, and episodes of the video series routinely contain religious themes, Bible verses and statements about God’s love and purpose.
NBC secured the rights to the show as part of a children’s programming partnership called Qubo, which it formed earlier this year with Classic Media, the owner of the VeggieTales franchise; Scholastic, the children’s publisher; Ion Media Networks; and Corus Entertainment. When the deal was announced in August, the partners said the “VeggieTales” episodes would be edited to NBC programming guidelines.
Since the show went on the air, however, Phil Vischer, the co-creator of “VeggieTales,” has complained on his Internet site (www.philvischer.com) that NBC has ordered most if not all of the references to God and the Bible to be excised from the episodes prepared for NBC.
“I’m not at all happy with the edits,” Mr. Vischer wrote. “I didn’t know I’d need to make them when I agreed to produce the show, and I considered dropping out when I found out just how much would need to be removed.”
Mr. Vischer added that he had decided not to withdraw from the project “as a favor” to Classic Media.
A spokesman for the show’s parent, however, said the company would rather have an edited version on the air than nothing. Bob Smith, a spokesman for Big Idea, the unit of Classic Media that produces VeggieTales, said that despite the edits, “the thread and values we’re trying to get across is unmistakable.”
“If it weren’t,” he added, “we never would have agreed to it.”
Mr. Wurtzel said NBC did not believe it had deleted the show’s religious message; he said the network had bought the rights to “Veggie Tales” because of its positive religious themes but that it did ask for changes to comply with its standards.
“We are not a religious broadcaster,” he said. “There are universally accepted religious values that we do think are appropriate,” but the promotion of “any particular religion or a particular denomination” is not allowed.
“Clearly the show has religious themes,” Mr. Wurtzel said. “It puts forth some very specific religious values. We had to make a decision about where it went further than we considered appropriate.”
Fans of “VeggieTales” have objected that the edited versions make the message unrecognizable, and L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, wrote letters to NBC executives complaining about both the “VeggieTales” decision and another issue, a Madonna concert scheduled to be broadcast in November.
Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment, announced this summer that the network would broadcast a taped concert by Madonna during the November ratings sweeps period. At the time, he said the concert would be edited to exclude offensive material. But Mr. Reilly was also quoted in August as saying that the network had no problem with a part of the performance in which Madonna sings while mounted on a cross, in imitation of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
That part of Madonna’s current concert tour has drawn protests around the world from people who believe it is blasphemous or offensive to Christians. This week, after receiving letters of protest about the concert and its intentions, NBC said it had not yet decided whether to include the crucifixion scene.
A spokeswoman for Madonna, however, said Friday that the singer considered the scene crucial to the performance and could withdraw the right for NBC to televise the concert if the scene were cut.
Liz Rosenberg, a publicist at Warner Brothers Records who serves as a spokeswoman for Madonna, said in an e-mail message: “Madonna would not want this number to be censored. It is an important aspect of the show.” She said she could not immediately reach Madonna to ask if she would pull out of the concert if NBC cut the song, “but my educated guess is that she will not back down.”
Madonna also issued a statement on Thursday saying that the performance was “neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous.”
“Rather,” it went on to say, “it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and see the world as a unified whole. I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today, he would be doing the same thing.”