Media giant Global has been accused of “political censorship” after rejecting an anti-monarchy billboard from the Alba Party, over fears it might “cause concern.”
In a new email seen by national media outlets such as STV, Global, which runs radio stations LBC and Heart as well as a large outdoor advertising arm, refused to showcase the political out-of-home campaign.
Global said in an email to Alba that if the image was “deemed to be politically persuasive with the use of something likely to cause offence, likely to get complaints and likely to have to be removed/replaced then we’re told that we can’t carry it”.
The campaign by Alex Salmond’s party depicted a side profile of King Charles III with a red line running through it with a message reading: “It’s time for an independent republic of Scotland.”
Alba reportedly offered to redesign the advert to instead include a crown, but Global pointed out that this would still be a direct reference to the royals.
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“The Alba Party have already had our campaign in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election interfered with by the blocking of our messaging that aimed to highlight Westminster seizing Scotland’s vast oil resources,” said the party’s general secretary Chris McEleny.
“But with Global having such a huge billboard footprint in Scotland the issue of political censorship is now a growing concern,” McEleny added, referring to the firm’s 250,000 UK advertising sites.
“We have a potential General Election next year and the current situation is that media giants will get to decide which messages the public get to see and which messages they don’t.
“Therefore, if you wanted to campaign for an independent Scotland with an elected head of state you wouldn’t be allowed to display an image of King Charles on the advert in fear that it would ‘upset the royals’.
“This is a ridiculous situation to be in – we must not allow interference in our democratic right to campaign in elections,” McEleny concluded.
This latest banned creative follows on from a previous abortive campaign launched earlier this month, in which Alba’s depiction of Rishi Sunak as a vampire was censored over fears it ‘slandered’ the Prime Minister.
In response, Alba hosted an event, inviting their members to meet up to collectively distribute leaflet versions of the billboard, in a defiant move to challenge the media firm.
Marketing Beat has reached out to Global for comment.
