Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute - Broadcast Politics

Broadcast Politics

Once the first set of artists had signed up, broadcasters were approached, starting with the BBC. Alan Yentob, recently-appointed controller of BBC2, said that he would provide five hours of airtime – and more if the bill improved. After several more top artists were added, the BBC agreed to televise the whole show.

Before the concert, 24 Conservative MPs put down a House of Commons motion, criticising the BBC for giving "publicity to a movement that encourages the African National Congress in its terrorist activities". However, no appeal was either planned or made. Further, the artists’ contracts – which in many cases were signed backstage at Wembley – laid down that no proceeds from the income of the event should go "towards the purchase of or in any other connection with armaments".

What problems there were came from the other side. Both the Anti-Apartheid Movement and Hollingsworth received bomb threats warning them not to go ahead with the event. Nearer the event, there was a threat to blow up the power station distributing electricity to Wembley.

With the BBC on board, it was easier to persuade other broadcasters to buy the rights for the concert. The show was in most cases sold to the entertainment divisions of broadcasters as a birthday tribute that would not be political. As a result, they could agree to show the event without referring the question upwards or to the news or current-affairs divisions. According to Hollingsworth, once they had agreed to show the concert, the news divisions would have to stop referring to Mandela as a terrorist leader, thereby helping to ensure that Mandela was looked upon in a more favourable light. This was said to be a campaign objective which was beginning to be achieved by March.

Even so, given the subject matter, the event was bound to be political in a broad sense. Thus, a week before the event, the Chicago Sun-Times said that the concert would have "the most overtly political theme since the 1960s...It's a confrontational political event aimed at the government of South Africa and its practice of apartheid".

Broadcasters were also told that the concert would use two stages, enabling acts to follow each other without a break, with top acts on the main stage and lesser-known groups on the second. There would therefore be no need for broadcasters to add material between events. The reasoning was that, first, the concert would look like a television show without awkward gaps encouraging audiences to switch off; and, second, broadcasters would be less likely to impose their own narrative on the event. The use of film stars to introduce major acts also helped achieve these objectives. Some broadcasters did send presenters to carry out backstage interviews for the presumed gaps but stopped doing so after a couple of hours.

Most broadcasters showed the event live. Others, particularly in the Americas, showed it delayed because of the time difference. Most gave more or less full coverage.

In the US, the Fox Television network showed only six hours in what was referred to as a "significantly de-radicalised version". A number of artists had their songs or speeches cut. One US newspaper objected that Fox "cut out some of the most passionate - and especially most political - moments of the day". Steven Van Zandt was appalled when he saw a recording of the Fox broadcast on his return to the US. He complained to the press, describing it as "a totally Orwellian experience". His own contribution, including a strident rendering of the song, Sun City, was one of those that were cut. Fox was worried about its sponsors and advertisers, particularly Coca-Cola which had booked six advertising spots for each hour.

Whitney Houston, who was contracted to make advertisements for Coca-Cola, did her act in front of a black backdrop instead of the usual picture of Nelson Mandela. But, according to Hollingsworth, this was nothing to do with censorship but the result of an electricity generator failing.

Fox also refused to use the concert title, Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute. Instead, it billed the show as Freedomfest, objecting to the pleas of the organisers to at least add "for Nelson Mandela".

A further issue was highlighted by film actor Whoopi Goldberg when she came on stage to introduce one of the acts, saying that she had been told to say nothing political. The request did not come from the concert organisers but from the Fox TV producer at Wembley who, unbeknown to the organisers, told the Hollywood film stars to avoid saying anything political because an election was coming up in the States. After the event, the producer – in charge of his own editing team for the US broadcast – took out a full-page advertisement in a US trade magazine thanking American artists for participating in his show.

The producer had been flown in a week before the Wembley concert to replace Fox's original choice who had been working on the production for three weeks but was thought by the network to have become infected by the political ethos of the concert organisation.