A Bit Of Cash For The Harold Arlen Estate, A Bit Of A Headache For The Bbc....

[sp1814]

Should the BBC play 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead' on the chart show this weekend?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-closer-to-number-one-spot-as-it-reaches-top-five-following-margaret-thatchers-death-8566042.html

Other papers (The Daily Mail) have compared it to the situation back in 1977, where the Beeb banned 'God Save The Queen' by the Sex Pistols, but is this not different, as GSTQ was specifically written about Her Maj, where this is a song whose meaning has been hijacked.

Sounds like the BBC are caught between a rock, and a hard place. Play the song and incur the wrath of many...or don't play the song and face accusations of cowardice.

Me...if I were the Director General, I would question whether its worth handing some sections of the press an open goal...

[LazyGun]

The BBC have announced what they plan to do regarding the Ding Dong over the Ding Dong Song.... they will be playing a clip of it, together with a brief news report explaining why this song is in the charts....

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/04/12/bbc-only-short-clip-of-distasteful-ding-dong-song-will-be-played/

[andy-hughes]

Bowing to pressure then.

Are they going to treat all popular music to a cultural information nugget every time it's played?

Ludicrous!

[sp1814]

I suspect the Mail will still bash the BBC on this.

[doctordb]

My real concern is that if the song is given airtime because of the i-tunes downloads then it will only encourage these "intellectual dissident's" to use even more radical and revolutionary protests in the future, such as ordering the screenplay of the film from amazon or even buying the blu-ray dvd from play.com.

[LazyGun]

@ doctorb - Zeal for such form of protest is inversely proportional to its expense - so i suspect a blu-ray DvD protest would have few adherents :)

[doctordb]

Good point LG, i should have said VHS. :)

[Zeuhl]

true lazy

perhaps it would be cheaper if April 8th became Ruby Slipper Day