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LONDON - A 70-year-old song is giving the BBC a headache.

The radio and television broadcaster has agonized over whether to play "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead," a tune from "The Wizard of Oz" that is being driven up the charts by opponents of Margaret Thatcher as a mocking memorial to the late British prime minister.

A compromise announced Friday the BBC will play part of "Ding Dong!" but not the whole song on its chart-countdown radio show is unlikely to end the recriminations

This is not the first time Britain's national broadcaster, which is nicknamed "Auntie" for its "we-know-what's-good-for-you" attitude, has been caught in a bind about whether to ban a song on grounds of language, politics or taste.

Here's a look at some previous censorship scandals:

SEX, DRUGS AND DOUBLE ENTENDRES

The 1960s and '70s saw several songs barred from airplay for sex or drug references, including The Beatles' "A Day in the Life," for a fleeting and implicit reference to smoking marijuana.

For The Kinks' 1970 hit "Lola," the trouble was not sex or drugs, but product placement. The line "you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola" fell afoul of the public broadcaster's rule banning corporate plugs. The brand name had to be replaced with "cherry cola" before the song could be aired.

The BBC frequently has been targeted by self-appointed moral guardians, most famously the late anti-smut activist Mary Whitehouse, who campaigned for decades against what she saw as pornography and permissiveness.

In 1972, Whitehouse got the BBC to ban the video for Alice Cooper's "School's Out" for allegedly being a bad influence on children. The controversy helped the song reach No. 1 in the charts, and Cooper sent Whitehouse flowers. He later said she had given his band "publicity we couldn't buy."

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Ding-dong over Thatcher song is latest censorship controversy for BBC

Free staters descend on "censorship central" after Manch mayor attempts camera resrictions
Sponsor: http://KeeneVention.INFO - Free staters descend on "censorship central" after Manch mayor attempts camera resrictions in City Hall. Details, other m...

By: RidleyReport

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Free staters descend on "censorship central" after Manch mayor attempts camera resrictions - Video

Bogota, April 12 (IANS/EFE) South African-born Nobel literature laureate J.M. Coetzee offered an impassioned critique of censorship during a seminar at the Universidad Central de Bogota.

Drawing from the themes of his 1996 book, "Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship", the famously reticent 73-year-old author recounted personal experiences with censorship in apartheid South Africa.

Though his novels "In the Heart of the Country" (1977), "Waiting for the Barbarians" (1980) and "Life & Times of Michael K" (1983) were all critical of apartheid, government censors left them untouched because he was a white, middle-class intellectual who did not write "for mass consumption", Coetzee said.

The writer recounted how he came to learn that some of the members of the "anonymous committee of censors" were respected intellectuals and personal acquaintances of his.

Once dubbed "the writer of writers" by the late Carlos Fuentes and hailed as "one of the best living novelists" by fellow Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, Coetzee has imbued his fiction with a symbolic, sometimes allegorical, style that questions all forms of racism and subjugation.

The seminar, Three Days with J.M. Coetzee, ended in the author's receiving an honorary doctorate from Universidad Central.

--IANS/EFE

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J.M. Coetzee rails against censorship

Leftist "Media Reform" Group Accused of Censorship
Project Censored is censored by the National Conference for Media Reform. Activist Fran Shure complains to Josh Stearns of "Free Press" about suppressing a "...

By: americassurvival

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Leftist "Media Reform" Group Accused of Censorship - Video

Apple's 'baffling censorship problem' has left app developers and comic publishers unsure about what they can submit to the App Store, after an issue of space fantasy comic Saga is blocked for containing adult content.

Edition 12 of the comic, which is distributed through an iPhone and iPad application, was not allowed to be published because it contained two scenes of gay sex. Explicit adult content is banned under Apple's terms and conditions, but previous issues of Saga have been granted access to the App Store, despite having similar content.

Ron Richards, director of business development at Image Comics, told IBTimes UK: "Censoring of apps is definitely a problem, especially for apps that contain content [such as comics, books, magazines].

"We find this particular instance baffling since Saga has contained sexually explicit imagery in previous issues and those were approved, and the same issue [edition 12] is approved for sale within Apple's iBookstore with no issue whatsoever."

Saga writer Brian K. Vaughan said in a blog post: "As has hopefully been clear from the first page of our first issue, Saga is a series for the proverbial 'mature reader.' Unfortunately, because of two postage-stamp sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow's Saga #12 from being sold through any iOS apps.

"This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go."

One of the offending images (seen here censored by a black box) appeared on the television headset worn by one of the comic's characters.

Richards added that such censorship "is not something I would ever want to see in a free market, so I'm glad that we have alternatives to this single marketplace."

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Comic Publisher 'Baffled' by Apple 'Censorship Problem'