SALT LAKE CITY — An NBC affiliate in Utah is refusing to air the upcoming period drama “The Playboy Club,” saying its audience may find the show objectionable, Entertainment Weekly reported Monday.
The series, set in 1963, follows the lives of the “Bunnies” who worked at the first Playboy Club, an extension of Hugh Hefner’s magazine of the same name, in Chicago.
Salt Lake City-based NBC affiliate KSL-TV issued a statement Sunday saying it had informed NBC that it will not air the show when it premieres in September.
“The decision is based on the station’s long-term policy to screen programming for material which significant portions of our audience may find objectionable,” the statement read in part.
Salt Lake City’s population is about 35 to 41 percent Mormon, according to a 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The Mormon faith opposes pornography, as well as addictive substances and addictive activities such as gambling.
KSL’s parent company, Bonneville International, is owned by the Mormon Church.
KSL President and CEO Mark Willes said, “The Playboy brand is known internationally. Everyone is clear what it stands for. We want to be sure everyone is clear what the KSL brand stands for, which is completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand.”
Michelle Torsak, KSL’s programming director, said the station was not interested in telling people “what they can and cannot watch,” but intended “to share programming with our audience in accordance with our mission.”
The station is a sponsor of the “Out in the Light” campaign. According to the campaign’s website, its aim is “to educate, direct and unite women around the world who are victimized by a spouse’s pornography problem.”
The New York Post reported in April that the cast of “The Playboy Club” had committed in their contracts to appearing nude on the show if necessary, but the nudity would likely only appear in DVD releases and cable syndication because it is forbidden on network television.