Backstage News on FOX’s Censorship During The Rock Concert – The Rock’s appearance on the March 15th episode of WWE SmackDown generated buzz, particularly due to his signature Rock Concert segment. However, it seems that his colorful language raised some eyebrows, leading to bleeped-out segments during the broadcast.
According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, The Rock’s promos are meticulously scripted in advance, with FOX receiving the script beforehand. This allows the network’s standards and practices department to anticipate and bleep any potentially offensive language. While The Rock’s status may afford him more leeway in what he can say, FOX still ensures compliance with their broadcasting standards by censoring certain words as per the pre-arranged script.
In essence, The Rock’s scripted promos are a collaborative effort between him, his longtime collaborator Brian Gewirtz, and the network, ensuring that his iconic segments maintain their edge while staying within the bounds of broadcast regulations.
“The SmackDown one. I mean, they bleeped a lot of stuff on SmackDown….The deal with the TV, what they have to do is, FOX gets the script ahead of time so they know when to bleep. Because the whole thing, The Rock promo, obviously it’s completely scripted. If it was anyone else, they would just be not allowed to say it, but with The Rock, it’s like, he can say whatever he wants, but they know what he’s gonna say and when he’s gonna say it, so anything they wanna bleep out, they will bleep out. And they know when to bleep it out because they’re told ahead of time. So that’s kind of the gist of the promo and why certain things were bleeped out and everything like that, and they didn’t miss on anything.”
Backstage News on FOX’s Censorship During The Rock Concert
