It took just ten complaints for Sainsbury’s to ban Jerry Springer the Opera from it’s shelves and unknown (though probably just as small) number for Woolworths to follow suit).

I’m confident that they’ll have received more than ten complaints at their censorship thanks to the bloggers who’ve expressed outrage following MediaWatchWatch’s call to arms. Sainsbury’s reply to my own note’s been as expected, pretty poor (the typos are theirs):

‘Thank you for taking the time to contact us. I am very sorry that you are unhappy with our decision to stop selling Jerry Springer, The Opera. on DVD.

‘Please let me assure you that we would never wish to cause offence to any of our customers. As a retailer, we feel we should offer our customers a choice of what to buy. We monitor all feedback about the products on sale in our stores and I can confirm that we are no longer selling Jerry Springer, The Opera..

‘Thank you again for letting us know how you feel. We are committed to getting things right for our customers and I do hope I have been able to offer you some assurance.’

They don’t get much more nonsensical than that. The theme seems to be ‘assurance’ that they don’t wish to cause offence, but of course they have. And that can’t be helped. Sometimes you have to take sides. I bought my tickets for Jerry Springer the Opera in Manchester sometime ago. With a bit of luck the god squad will ensure a packed house and the fun of crossing a picket line.

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