Question on the Blurring of Logos/Product Placements (1 Viewer)

[Rusty_W]

Today (November 9th) I was briefly watching The A-Team on TV Land and I noticed that the logos on the tow truck was blurred out. I thought this was pretty odd and I believe that they was blurring out the FORD logo. I know in modern TV shows (especially reality TV where they cannot control these things from popping up) they will blur out T-shirts and any logo/product name that they can, but why do this to an older TV program?

I remember a few months back watching Superman 2 movie on TV and they blurred out the Marlboro cigarette logos which really shocked me, as I swore they never had done anything like this in the 80s, which was the last time I had actually seen this movie. Yet there was loads of other products that was not blurred out. I'm assuming the policital nature of cigs was why they done this, but then again, I could be wrong and there is something deeper behind it.

So, now I'm left wondering why this is being done so selectively. Was there some law passed which I'm unaware of to make the TV companies blur certain things out and not others, even on old TV programs?

And to relate this to TV on DVD, surely, they don't blur out these things out on DVD as well, do they? I mean the older releases like A-team where it was never blurred out during it's original showing. I cannot see why they would blur these things out on DVD, but then I really don't see why they would on TV either.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

Perhaps the exact opposite happened. Perhaps they contacted all of the advertisers in question and invited them to pay for the retroactive product placement.

Ford said, "forget it" so they were blurred.

Marlboro possibly no longer legal so couldn't legally pay for the placement so were blurred.

 

[MatthewA]

The ban on cigarette ads only applies to television broadcasts.

 

[Joe Stuart]

I think with all the product placement going on, it is a question of pay up or get blurred out. While I dislike any altering of original material, I can at least understand that they may feel it is necessary to do since they want companies to pay for product placement, but it would be hard to justify if pre-existing product placements were re-aired free of charge. Just another way that product placement is negative effecting television.

And the reason for blurring the Marlboro logo that MishaLauenstein gave sounds the most likely.