Sensational-Adelaide.com

Liberals miffed at Foxtel promo
Article from: NEWS.com.au

January 12, 2008 08:00am

IS Adelaide the serial killer capital of Australia? Foxtel and the SA Liberals are at each other's throats over the claim, made in a new program promotion.
The Liberals were dying to announce that they were proudly protecting the image of the state and they had had the offending promotion "pulled" from Foxtel's cable channels.

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Foxtel accused them of being in a state of "modest hysteria" and said the promo was only being "rested" for the weekend.

The promotion features Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under fame who in a new TV series Dexter plays a sociopath serial killer.

Hall is in an airport terminal waiting for a flight to Adelaide and tells a fellow passenger: "Adelaide has more serial killers per capita than any other city in Australia."

Wounded by this claim after receiving a "flurry of complaints", Liberal tourism spokesman Michael Pengilly wrote to Foxtel telling it "references to Adelaide as some sort of serial killers' capital damages the city's reputation and its tourism industry".

Mr Pengilly yesterday said at a joint press conference with Acting Opposition Leader David Ridgway that the serial killer tag was "a stigma that's been attached to Adelaide for quite some time ... and I think it's not in the best interests of the state".

"We've got through Snowtown (12 murders), we've got through Truro (seven murders), South Australia's got this reputation of having these things happen," Mr Pengilly said.

"We don't need that," he said, adding that it went all the way back to the mid-1960s and the unsolved disappearance of the three Beaumont children from an Adelaide beach.

"A leading criminologist says that Adelaide isn't the serial killing capital. In fact, it's below the national average.

"I'm a proud South Australian and I don't want this sort of reputation being bandied anywhere around the nation."

Both Liberal frontbenchers said their requests to Foxtel to pull the promo had "neutralised" the damage being done.

Foxtel yesterday said it had not pulled the promotion, asserting it had been taken out of context by the Opposition.

"An independent decision was made by Showtime that given some modest hysteria by the SA Opposition (which has chosen to exploit a media opportunity) that its promo would be rested during the weekend," Foxtel said, no doubt relishing the free publicity it was getting.

The cable company said it had not had any other complaints and would reconsider the matter next week.

South Australia's Acting Tourism Minister Paul Caica questioned why the Opposition, if it was so concerned by the TV advertisement, had reiterated the message to the whole of Australia.

"The Opposition have succeeded only in making sure everyone knows about the claim they're supposedly so concerned about," Mr Caica said.

crawf wrote:After reading some of the horrible crimes interstate recently (especially in Melbourne), this myth is just BS. Yes there have been some shocking crimes here, but SA is by far not the only state and times are alot different these days.

Its pathetic the add was even made, same goes for the 'city of churches' tag. Adelaide is no more religious than any other major Australian city.

Its just some typical pathetic attempt at having a go at SA.

crawf wrote:That is true, however majority of people who use the term wouldn't even know any of that.

I much prefer the "Festival City"

Will wrote:For the sake of some publicity the SA Liberals have done a great disservice to this state. If the SA Liberals had not done this, very few people would have found out about his. By highlighting the add, the SA Liberals have only further perpetuated this stereotype. My question to the SA Liberals is; was it worth trashing the reputation of Adelaide for some publicity?