MONTREAL – Radio-Canada received so many complaints about a show called ‘Bye Bye 2008’ that aired on New Years Eve, including a critical column in Tuesday’s Globe and Mail, that its executive vice president felt compelled to issue a public statement late on Wednesday.
“The Bye Bye is a year-end comedy special renowned for its brashness and irreverence,” read the network’s statement from Sylvain Lafrance. “There is generally some degree of controversy attached to it, and some audience members occasionally deem that certain skits go too far. Though the writers, stars and producers of the show do not aim to be offensive, some of the material can be misunderstood, especially if presented in print format such as in yesterday’s Globe and Mail.”
The newspaper article criticized the show for airing tasteless skits “featuring gags on the assassination of U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, prison rape, a battered wife, black criminality and anglo inbreeding seems” which it judged “to have gone far over the line, even by Quebec’s forgiving standards.”
It also reported that Radio-Canada has received more than 1,000 letters and phone calls regarding the show, and the CRTC received 28 complaints in the six days following the show.
While acknowledging that “airing a humorous, satire-oriented program open to many levels of interpretation can be risky business”, Lafrance did not offer an apology or attempt to distance the network from “the program team that put its heart and soul into this broadcast”. Nor did he promise that Radio-Canada would stop airing controversial programming in the future.
And in keeping with the ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ school of thought, Lafrance called the program “the most anticipated, most watched and most talked about broadcast of the year.”
To read the Globe and Mail article, click here
