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Media
Money For Nothing allowed back on Canadian radio
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 2 September 2011
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has reversed its decision regarding Dire Straits track ‘Money For Nothing’. As previously reported, the non-statutory body that oversees standards on commercial radio in Canada, earlier this year said the 1985 track should no longer be played in its unedited form because it uses the word “faggot”, which one listener had complained about.
Various presenters and heads of music in Canadian radio criticised the decision, some continuing to play the song uncut despite the CBSC ruling. They argued that no one had ever taken offence at the song before, and besides the whole point of the song is that it’s the words of an unseemly character which the song is actually mocking, so the use of words like “faggot” in that context are not offensive.
Although the CBSC initially stuck by its decision, even government body the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission advised a re-think.
And now that re-think has occurred. The CSBC says that while the fact the song had been played unedited for 25 years had no bearing on its decision, other “additional information” had persuaded it to change its ruling. The additional information seems to be the aforementioned context of the song, and the fact the band made an alternative version without the (other) “f” word back in 1985. With all that in mind, the CSBC has decided to let individual stations decide which version of the song they play, should they wish to play the song in the first place, I suppose.
