Saving Private Ryan - UNCUT - in HD Nov 11th

[Skaggs]

ABC will be airing this as a Veteran's Day special...they say "uncut, with limited commercial interruptions". Link to ABC website

ABC is available in HD in the Albany area via Time Warner Cable channel 1810 or via OTA on 10-1.

[Skaggs]

UPDATE: The local ABC affiliate, WTEN, has chosen NOT TO SHOW this program due to possible fines by the FCC.

As posted on WTEN's website:

"Saving Private Ryan" will not air tonight on Young Broadcasting Inc. television stations, including WTEN-TV/DT, Albany, NY and WCDC TV/DT, Adams, MA due to concerns about the film's realistic portrayal of wartime images and recent FCC actions regulating broadcasting.

The following is a statement from Young Broadcasting president Deborah McDermott:

Our ABC affiliated stations have, with reluctance, elected not to broadcast the highly acclaimed movie "Saving Private Ryan" in response to new and troubling legal standards from the Federal Communications Commission governing the kind of program content that may be broadcast prior to 10:00 p.m.

The broadcast of this movie on Veterans' Day would have served as a fitting tribute to the brave men and women in uniform who in the past and to this very day serve our nation with honor and distinction.

This has been a difficult and agonizing decision for us. However, we have a responsibility to operate in accord with the law, and until the FCC or the courts clarify what the broadcast legal standards are for programs of this type, we will continue to be confronted with these difficult choices.

We encourage our viewers to share their thoughts with us on all of our program decisions. We value viewer input and will, consistent with our legal responsibilities, continue to be responsive to it.

[OldMatador]

Gotta love political fun. All because of Janet Jackson's nipple...

Remember when Schindler's List was on a couple of years ago, and a congressman or congresswoman denounced it only to get TROUNCED by the general public. I reckon if anyone put up a stink about this movie, the same public would lay it into them.

[Skaggs]

ABC Fought the Pre-emption of 'Private Ryan'

By REUTERS November 12, 2004

ABC television, backed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and others, spent much of yesterday trying to keep nervous affiliate stations from deserting a Veterans Day broadcast of the acclaimed World War II film "Saving Private Ryan."

Several ABC affiliates, including eight stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group and four owned by the Belo Corporation, scheduled other programming, citing concerns about profanity and graphic violence in the film.

In Dallas, ABC's Belo-owned affiliate, WFAA, broadcast Oprah Winfrey's talk show and the movie "Hoosiers" instead of "Saving Private Ryan." Sinclair said the recent crackdown on indecent material by the Federal Communications Commission was a major factor in its decision to shun the R-rated film, which ABC is obligated to broadcast without editing or bleeps under an agreement with DreamWorks, the studio that produced it.

While the F.C.C. declined to comment in advance of last night's telecast - "that would be censorship," a spokeswoman told The Hollywood Reporter - the agency defended the 2002 broadcast of the film in a letter to the American Family Association, ruling the film was neither profane nor indecent.

Executives at ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, said most of ABC's 225 affiliates carried the film. Mr. McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who introduced the broadcast on ABC, issued a statement saying the film "comes nowhere near indecent."

Sinclair, Belo and other stations balking at the film said they had asked ABC to permit them to show it later in the evening, when fewer children were watching, but ABC rejected their request.