ABC Writes Out Fox

TV shows often feature plots ripped from the headlines, but an upcoming episode of David E. Kelley’s legal drama “Boston Legal” was a bit too lifelike for ABC executives.

Sunday’s episode of the series starring James Spader is about the censorship issues raised when a high school principal tries to block students’ access to a cable news channel. In Kelley’s original script, the network in question was News Corp.’s Fox News Channel.

But that script didn’t pass muster with the standards department at Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, which ordered Kelley to remove multiple references to Fox News.

The episode, titled “Let Sales Ring,” now avoids any mention of Fox but has characters referring to a network that is accused of pushing a conservative agenda, leaving it to viewers to make their own inferences.

Although networks’ standards departments routinely ask for changes in scripts, the revisions ABC wanted were fairly extensive. ABC said the decision had nothing to do with politics.

“While real-life situations are often used as original inspiration for fictionalized programming story lines, it is a long-standing, industrywide practice not to use real people or actual events,” ABC spokesman Kevin Brockman said in a statement.

Kelley spokeswoman Stacey Luchs said: “We did make some changes to the script per ABC’s request but managed to tell the same story in what we believe is an even more subversive and provocative way.”

She said Kelley was unavailable to comment.

The flap highlighted an intriguing corporate coincidence. “Boston Legal” is co-produced by David E. Kelley Productions and Twentieth Century Fox Television, a sister company to Fox News Channel. A Fox studio spokesman declined to comment, as did a representative for Fox News Channel.

ABC also rejected an ad for the DVD version of “Outfoxed,” an anti-Fox News documentary released last year. The distributor wanted to run the ad during “Boston Legal,” partly because the documentary is mentioned during Sunday’s episode. Brockman said the ad contained unacceptable content.