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Not amused. Chaser’s Royal Wedding commentary cancelled

Updated: ABC2's Royal Wedding commentary from The Chaser has been pulled due to restrictions on use of footage in comedy and satire.

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It seems the Queen is not amused. Or at least Clarence House isn’t.

ABC2’s Royal Wedding commentary from The Chaser team has been pulled just two days before the big day.

ABC TV has been forced to cancel their live satirical commentary, due to air on ABC2 from 7:00pm on Friday.

The special has had to be pulled pulled due to restrictions imposed over the Easter break.

ABC TV had initially been advised by the BBC and Associated Press Television News (APTN) there were no coverage restrictions on wedding commentary.

But new conditions of use issued over the Easter break state footage cannot be used “in any drama, comedy, satirical or similar entertainment program or content”.

According to the advisory “the ‘Wedding Ceremony’ shall mean the period from the arrival of the first member of the Royal Family for the wedding service until the last member of the Royal Family leaves the main entrance of Westminster Abbey following the conclusion of the wedding service.”

According to the BBC, all providers of live coverage of the wedding have agreed to the restrictions imposed by Clarence House.

Kim Dalton, Director of ABC TV said “the national broadcaster has acted in good faith in its negotiations around ABC2’s planned coverage with both the BBC and APTN.

“We’re surprised and disappointed at this very late stage to be informed that any satirical or comedic treatment of the marriage of Australia’s future Head of State has been banned.”

As late as this morning the BBC issued a new contract imposing additional restrictions on the use of its material.

“ABC TV had always planned to take the BBC’s full coverage with commentary on ABC1. However like other broadcasters we thought Australians would appreciate an alternative take on this major event,” said Dalton.

“The Nine Network has Dame Edna giving her commentary and the TEN Network has The 7PM Project taking a light-hearted approach to the Royal Wedding. Our obvious choice, for a light-hearted commentary is The Chaser team. Clearly, the BBC and Clarence House have decided The Chaser aren’t acceptable.”

Julian Morrow said, “Everyone loves a royal wedding.

“Except perhaps The Queen, who didn’t even bother going to the last one, but The Chaser couldn’t be more thrilled to be covering the big day.

“And who knows – if it goes well, hopefully they ask us back next year to cover the divorce.”

Chris Taylor said “We’ve been taken off air before but never by the Queen herself. It’s an honour”

ABC1 will still be taking the BBC coverage of the wedding, including its commentary, and ABC News and ABC News 24’s coverage will not be affected by the ban on ABC2 usage.

UPDATE: A TEN spokesperson tells TV Tonight there are no changes to its coverage featuring Fitzy, Wippa and Lucy McDonald. “We are proceeding as planned with our Royal Wedding programming. Our coverage will be respectful though light hearted.”

A Nine spokesperson tells TV Tonight there is nothing in the restrictions that will change plans for Dame Edna Everage.

97 Responses

  1. Just seen Chas Licciardello twitter page and comments

    “This WilliamandKate telemovie is a lot worse than anything we planned to do on Friday night.”

    LOL

  2. wow. that’s awful. Now, I’ll have nothing to do that night.

    What is 10 and 9 going to do since they’ve got comedic coverage – it seems that channel 7 is the only channel following the rules.

  3. Part of me wonders where the monarchy gets the constitutional powers to dictate to the BBC, who in turn dictate to the ABC, the other part wishes Roy & HG would bail us out of this Royal wedding malaise.

  6. No!!!!!!!!! I was really looking forward to this! The only thing connected to the wedding that i was interested in!

    The most over hyped wedding in the century! And no Chaser’s too accommodate this! What a shame….They would have actually made the 7 hour wedding interesting!!!
    I watched an ad for it already and it was hilarious!

    That also means I will not be watching TV at all in the next few weeks (wedding aftermath) except for Masterchef….

    Maybe England just doesn’t want to face the fact that ALot of people are making fun of the wedding anyway XD

  8. omg ABC!!!! what are u doing?? I had plans to laugh my head off during the show… but noooooooo if it’s true that the Chaser has been taken off from the royal family coverage, I will Never watch ABC ever again!!!!

    Chaser could have the coverage on community tv or live unedited video streaming on the net.

  9. That’s rubbish, they are clearly one-siding the media in this…

    Well at least they know no one that will be covering the Wedding is funny. This will be clear through the bland and teeth-gritting dullness of the coverage.

  13. Why is the ABC being bound by some agreement made between the BBC and Clarence House. Surely, they should have to provide the coverage without restriction to the other countries that share the monarchy. Typical that we are told it is equally the monarchy of Australia, NZ, Canada etc as much as that of the UK, yet we are stuck with agreements made in the UK without consultation. It’s particularly disgraceful that the rules are changed without consulation given that they ABC has already spent the hard earned money of Her Majesty’s Australian subjects planning for this broadcast.

  20. Good! I’ve been a Chaser fan for years but weddings are sacred. I’m sure they wouldn’t like it if someone did that to them on their wedding day.
    At least the Chaser boys were only told they couldn’t do the commentary… look at what governments did to Julian Assange!!

  21. Julian Morrow was just on News24’s The Drum if anyone wants to iView it later (he starts around the 25 minute mark). He explains everything quite well. He also answers some of the questions people have here – they won’t do radio because they had a lot of visual gags planned.

    My favourite quote from Morrow: “This decision is ridiculous & out-of-touch. But then again, the royal family is ridiculous & out-of-touch.” 😉

  23. I probablty overreacted but is this just for the ABC or any networks commentary? most of the Aussies are gonna take the p**s. The Circle & Ryan & Whippa on Ten, Dame Edna on 9 etc..

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