NBC Forced to Cut Madonna Crucifixion Shot

The evangelical Christian right notched up a victory yesterday when the NBC television network decided to cut a crucifixion scene from footage of a Madonna concert to be broadcast next month.

The five-minute scene, filmed during the singer's recent Confessions world tour, shows her strapped to a glittering crucifix made of mirrors like those of a disco ball. She wears a crown of thorns as she sings her 1986 anthem Live to Tell.

NBC declined to explain its decision to remove the shots from its Madonna broadcast on November 22. November viewer ratings are particularly sensitive as they determine how much US television companies can charge for adverts.

Leading the outcry was the American Family Association based in Tupelo, Mississippi, an evangelical group which campaigns for "traditional moral values". It alerted its 3 million subscribers, who in turn bombarded NBC with 850,000 angry emails. The group also targeted NBC affiliated broadcasters, and advertisers. "We told them if they had any sense at all they wouldn't sponsor Madonna mocking Jesus Christ on national TV," said the group's president, Tim Wildmon.

Madonna's spokeswoman said: "That element of the song is no longer in the show. How they came to that conclusion I really don't know."

The Confessions tour was dogged by disputes. In Rome her act was condemned by a cardinal, purportedly with the Pope's blessing, as a "profanation of the cross". Madonna has denied that the performance is sacrilegious.

It is the second altercation to engulf Madonna in a week after she aroused impassioned debate by adopting a boy from Malawi.