How Ten and ABC turned the Roseanne tweet fiasco into a reputational win
As both Ten and ABC in the US bar Roseanne from the airwaves following a racist tweet, Inside Out PR’s Nicole Reaney explains how both broadcasters turned a potential crisis around.
It took just one tweet for an international ratings victory to be axed within hours of its display. Roseanne Barr reinvented her fame with the return of her show in March – drawing in an audience of 22 million in the US alone (blazing ahead of Will & Grace’s return at 10 million).
But in one reckless tweet that has spread throughout the globe, the ABC swiftly axed the show, with Ten replicating the decision here in Australia.
Also known as the definition of virtue signalling
No, more like the definition of facing consequences for your actions.
Excellent piece nicole. It is refreshing to see a company act so swiftly and definitively to declare its stand. In an era of scandals, exploding thermomixes, deception and royal commissions into corporate behaviour, its rare. I suspect they knew this day was coming and hence was able to act fast. Edelman trust research shows that consumers are not that enamoured with celebs fronting brands, so rather than trying to demonstrate certainbrand values by celeb alignment, perhaps they should simply eeer actually demonstrate them! Interesting times eh?
I’m with Facepalm.
There is no defending Rosanne’s tweets, the woman is off her rocker, but this high horse nonsense that has accompanied it is ridiculous.
Does anyone seriously think that the overwhelming majority of Australians would’ve had negative thoughts about Channel 10 if they showed the remaining episodes???
99% of the world’s population would think Rosanne was out of order and thought poorly of her. Only 1% of loons (mostly media types) would’ve attacked ABC / Channel 10 for continuing with the show, the rest of us just want to watch TV.
… except the people now running television networks are not “television people” but accountants and salesmen who always think “bottom line” and are swayed by the vocal PC brigade into making rash decisions. Sigh, bring back Kerry Packer!!!
@ex ABC
Don’t worry, you’ll always have the racist-woman-beating Eddie McGuire to entertain you.
Not sure it would have had the same impact for Channel 10, but I imagine ABC were pre-empting boycotts from advertisers that would have prolonged the negative publicity and potentially shut the show down anyway.
Local ratings meant the show wasn’t the same hit here as US, so Ch10 just had less to lose.
Spurious to use the ABC/Ten response to Barr’s tweet to argue Rugby Australia should have taken a stronger stand against Israel Folau. Barr’s tweet was clearly racist and offensive. Folau was expressing a sincere belief based on a faith he shares with millions of other fundamentalist/evangelical Christians around the world. Speaking as an atheist who voted for marriage equality, I defend Folau’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion: he does us all a favour by honestly expressing his views so others can examine and discuss the reasons and issues underlying his views, rather than letting them fester as thoughtcrimes.
Would just like to point out the double standards here.
Roseanne, a woman who made a stupid mistake with her big mouth gets her show immediately axed, leaving hundreds unemployed.
Countless men in the entertainment industry continue with worse behaviour online and on-air, yet there’s no consequences for them aside from a slap on the wrist and a day of bad PR.
Roseanne Barr was always racist, ABC only culled the show when it was no longer under the surface for them. ABC deserves no clap on the back for this.
So ten showed moral fibres by cancelling a show that was cancelled and not coming their way anymore. Good on em!
This article is typical race exploitation, the type you could only get away with in Australian PR. I-spy racism is an easy sport for organizations to fluff up their race virtue feathers and continue with deep rooted institutional racism.
Channel Ten, appears today, both on-air and in the workplace as a white enclave only. If CBS continues to allow this they will be complicit in this sinister type of racism. How in a country as diverse as Australia do we end up with a original program line up that is so eerily white? Only a conscious policy from up high up could allow this. Lets hope CBS corporate policy will bring a more representative Network Ten.