Cowardice, hypocrisy and really, really poor business sense.
A&E really had this one planned out well. They decided to air a show featuring the Robertson family. The Robertsons are devout evangelical Christians who are fearless in discussing their beliefs. It was not unexpected that the liberal outrage machine would eventually find something said by some member of the family that would be used to attack their beliefs. It was going to happen. You knew it was going to happen. Liberals cannot stand it when anybody promoting conservative values becomes too popular. It was inevitable. So why was A&E so completely unprepared for this? This had to have been a giant miscalculation, right?. No business could have handled something so inevitable this poorly. What was their response plan? A&E immediately caved to complaints from a special interest group that represents maybe 2% of the population. They indefinitely suspended Phil Robertson for openly and honestly discussing his Christian beliefs (an integral part of the DD show). What he said was evidently so terrible and intolerant that A&E felt that they could no longer be associated with him.............
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| Image from Michelle Malkin |
......yet they didn't cancel the shows that have featured Phil Robertson. In fact, A&E is running Duck Dynasty marathons pretty much throughout the holiday season. I guess that principled stand against intolerance doesn't apply to shows that were already paid for and have advertising already sold. Hypocrisy much?
A&E's action has launched a firestorm of protest from supporters of the Robertson Family and the concept of free speech. Just a little hint for A&E.....I think that the pro-Phil, pro-free speech demo is just a wee bit larger than the gays you tried to appease. The boycott of A&E has begun and it will make the pro-Chick-fil-A action seem tiny in comparison. Just one of the A&E boycott groups on FaceBook got 1.2 million followers in less than a day. Good luck selling advertising now, A&E. Your cowardice has killed the golden goose.
In summary: abandon the principles of freedom of speech upon which your very existence depends, piss off the fans of the most successful reality show on TV to appease a tiny demographic, piss off the tiny demographic with your blatant hypocrisy and lose lots and lots of money. Good job, guys.
I wonder how the contract was structured. I would not put it past a network to have and eat cake with a well crafted legal document. Doesn't it seem likely that as they pushed onward with the vast success of the show, the network was sort of shocked at how much money they made from the rednecks? We startex watching the show a few months ago. As we really began to enjoy it, of course a and e would ruin it for us. I stand with Phil.
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