US TV channel ducks for cover

The United States television channel A& E landed in the middle of the nation’s culture wars when Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson sounded off on gays and the Bible.

A& E quickly found there was no safe ground.

It was pilloried for allowing a man who equated gays with hell- bound sinners like adulterers to have a national television stage. Then it was excoriated for giving him the hook.

With A& E’s decision last week to bring Robertson back to its mostwatched show, it remains to be seen if it can mend fences with both sides.

The channel’s interest is in ratings and revenue, not refereeing social discord.

Will those who called for an A& E boycott unless Robertson returned be satisfied? Will Duck Dynasty fans who enjoy the Louisiana duck callmaking family but were offended by Robertson’s comments watch again?

The gay right group Glaad, which had slammed Robertson’s comments to GQ magazine, issued a critical statement despite A& E’s vague allusion to the support of ‘‘ numerous advocacy groups’’ for its reversal.

‘‘ If dialogue with Phil is not part of [ the] next steps, then A& E has chosen profits over AfricanAmerican and gay people – es- pecially its employees and viewers,’’ Glaad said, referring to Robertson’s remark to GQ that he didn’t know any unhappy blacks in the pre- Civil Rights era South.

A& E said it intended to air a national public service campaign ‘‘ promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people’’.

Within a day of Robertson’s removal, more than a half- million people ‘‘ liked’’ an impromptu Facebook page backing a boycott of A& E until he returned. A petition calling for A& E to bring him back reached 250,000 signatures and counting in about a week.

While television ratings tend to fluctuate, particularly during the holidays when viewing drops, the overall A& E audience was smaller after the Duck brouhaha than before.

Duck Dynasty is the channel’s highest- rated programme and set a reality show record for cable with nearly 12 million viewers for its fourth- season debut a few months ago.

Last week, the family said on its Duck Commander website ( bit. ly/ 1c5vI5G ) that although some of Phil Robertson’s comments were coarse, ‘‘ his beliefs are grounded’’ in the Bible and he ‘‘ is a Godly man’’.

They also said that ‘‘ as a family, we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm’’.