Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV met with representatives from Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center this week to discuss the station’s refusal to air The New Normal, the new NBC series following a gay couple as they adopt a baby from a surrogate, when it debuts September 11 at 9:30pm.
Surprisingly, the station claims its not really the gay content it had a problem with. In a joint statement with the advocacy organizations, KSL said the following:
“We appreciated the opportunity to meet today. It was helpful to talk together, to better understand issues, and to be able to discuss the reasons behind our decision to not air The New Normal. This was not a decision we made lightly and it was not made because of any single issue including gay characters or LGBT families. As a communications company we make decisions every day regarding our programming and we made a decision to not broadcast this program because we feel it had a number of issues including sexually explicit content, demeaning dialogue, and inciting stereotypes.
“We care about and value all members of our community, including LGBT people and their families, and are grateful when there can be the type of cordial and respectful dialogue we have had today.”
Really—you’re going with that? If demeaning dialogue, explicit content and stereotype were banned from your channel, you would’nt be airing Saturday Night Live, Up All Night, Law & Order: SVU or the Today show.
Yanking the show has no real teeth anyway—the debut episode of The New Normal is already available online (above), and GLAAD is planning to host a screening in SLC in a few days.
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“From the outset, it appeared clear that the presence of gay characters factored into KSL’s decision. With gay families having long been part of some of television’s most well-known and popular series, KSL’s decision is out of touch with a vast majority of television viewers, advertisers and critics,” said GLAAD President Herndon Graddick.
We seriously hope New Normal gets bigger than Modern Family, even if only to spite the bigots at KSL.
Photo: NBC
scottnic
“If demeaning dialogue, explicit content and stereotype were banned from your channel, you would’nt be airing Saturday Night Live, Up All Night, Law & Order: SVU or the Today show.”
They actually don’t air Saturday Night Live. Which doesn’t make this any less ridiculous…
Avenger
I wish they would OWN that it IS the reason. I hate PC damage control.
“I’m the head of programming, and I don’t want that gay shit airing on my station.”
How hard is that?
yaoming
Try this link for the vid:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/395910
Cee
I just watched the pilot. It’s interesting enough, but I don’t see myself watching the show. It’s missing something and I don’t know what it is.
Culberson
How can we get FoxNews yanked?
hephaestion
Liar liar pants on fire!
Nobody in America is buying that lie, KSL.
JonahEastCoast
I wish we could say they yanked it because it is terrible! I tried to watch the pilot twice and even skipping around a bit in search of ANYTHING comedic or interesting but with predictable awfuls like Justin Bartha (had to look him up) the only hope of survival is if the progressive USA-loving crowd (Royal Pains, Necessary Roughness, even sexy Matt Bomer in blah White Collar) gets attached!
tdx3fan
From what I have seen of this show (from trailers) it seems like it is just Will and Grace 2.0 from (shock) the creators of Will and Grace. That means the whole show WILL be based on stereotypically flat gay characters that do less to represent the entire community than Madonna.
tdx3fan
@Cee: If I had to guess, without even watching it, I would say it is missing a strong male lead gay character because W&G creators do not know how to write them.