WRAL reacts to censoring Dave Chappelle's SNL monologue

This weekend’s episode of "Saturday Night Live" included something different for viewers watching the show through WRAL-TV — several gaps in audio.

The audio outages occurred during a stand-up monologue from the show’s host, Dave Chappelle, and again during a comedy sketch featuring the host spoofing "The Walking Dead." 

Steve Hammel, vice president and general manager of WRAL, said in a statement the outages were intentional because of the station's profanity policies. 

The statement said WRAL apologizes for impeding the flow of the monologue, and they did not intend to censor Chappelle's message. 

"We followed policies and procedures that have been in place for many years for programming of any kind," the statement said. "This is an opportunity for us to review those policies and procedures. We will, and will consider viewer input as we do that.”

Cathy Packer, a distinguished professor in the UNC School of Media and Journalism, said the intentional cutting of audio by a television network is not a free speech violation or technically censorship. 

“It’s not possible for a television station to violate somebody’s First Amendment rights because the First Amendment only protects people from the government,” she said.

Packer said viewers may have been stunned by the changes to the episode due to the longstanding presence of "Saturday Night Live" on the air, as it is usually unchanged. 

“There’s a sort of impulse that people have this week to think that everything is related to the presidential election,” she said. “I don’t think that is the case.”

Packer said the Federal Communications Commission has rules about words that can and can't be aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. — when children are most likely to be watching. But this doesn't apply to "Saturday Night Live", which airs at 11:30 p.m. 

“There was no need for them to block these words, and I doubt that they usually do that, and I’m certain that there are other occasions where 'Saturday Night Live' has used similar language before,” she said. “Frequently the case with censorship is that it ends up looking silly.”

Jim Hefner, a professor at the UNC School of Media and Journalism and former vice president and general manager of WRAL, said the station is on an eight-second delay and the person in the control room follows policies on which words should not be broadcast. 

“They have the right to do it, and the viewer has the right to be mad about it,” Hefner said. “Television is a perfect democracy.”

Hefner said if WRAL’s statement is true, the station is looking to change editing policies that may be outdated.

“I can only assume that they agree with some members of their audience and they probably shouldn’t have done it,” Hefner said. “What we thought was inappropriate 20 years ago may not be inappropriate today.”

@OlivinOnAPrayer

state@dailytarheel.com