GE Denies Seeking ‘Atomic Train’ Alterations

NBC and its parent, General Electric, deny the network was bowing to corporate interests or pressure from the nuclear industry in choosing to alter the miniseries “Atomic Train.”

In a last-minute bit of editing on the project, which airs Sunday and Monday and involves a train derailment of nuclear material outside Denver, the network has changed references to the danger from “nuclear waste” to “hazardous materials.” Advocacy groups suggest the change may have been dictated by GE, whose businesses include servicing nuclear power plants and reactors.

“They have plenty of financial interest in the nuclear power industry,” said Auke Piersma, an energy policy analyst for Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

General Electric does operate nuclear divisions, but company sources say they amount to only a small fraction of GE’s $100 billion in annual revenues--considerably less, in fact, than the $6 billion grossed by NBC.

“NBC is responsible for NBC’s programming decisions,” said GE spokeswoman Beth Comstock. “We leave the decisions up to NBC.”

The network has attributed revisions in the program to a desire not to mislead or misinform the public, after trying to catch people’s attention by running ads that said, “Where will you be when disaster strikes? Trains carry nuclear materials through America’s backyards all the time. What if one day . . . something went wrong?”

Sources lay the blame in part on overzealousness by NBC’s promotion department, which aired equally sensational ads with considerable success promoting “Asteroid,” a 1997 miniseries that dealt with the prospects of a huge asteroid striking the Earth.