Three major Montreal radio stations have stopped playing Michael Jackson songs as a result of child-molestation allegations against the late musician aired Sunday in an HBO documentary.
A spokeswoman for the owner of the French-language stations CKOI and Rythme and the English-language The Beat said they pulled Jackson's music Monday morning.
She added that the decision will also apply to Cogeco Media stations in smaller markets in the province. The company operates 23 radio stations that it says reach more than 5 million listeners every week.No other broadcasters contacted said they plan to remove Jackson hits from the airwaves. "We currently have no plans to pull the songs but are monitoring the situation closely," Chris Sarpong, a spokesman for Corus Radio, said in an email to The Canadian Press on Sunday.
Jackson's family and his estate have denounced the documentary in recent weeks through written statements, a lawsuit and letters to HBO and Britain's Channel 4, which also plans to air the film. Their central criticism has been the film's failure to talk to family members or other defenders of Jackson, whom they insist never molested a child.
"It's the story of these two families and not of all the other people who were or weren't abused by Michael Jackson," Reed told The Associated Press after the film's premiere. "People who spent time with him can go, 'He couldn't possibly be a pedophile.' How do they know? It's absurd."
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