Following uproar over a planned upcoming Television Broadcast that would re-enact the autopsy of the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, Discovery have ” indefinitely postponed” the programme.
“Given the commencement of legal proceedings beginning next week, and at the request of Michael Jackson’s estate, the scheduled broadcast of the medical documentary related to Michael Jackson’s official autopsy has been postponed indefinitely,” a statement from the network read.
The programme had been set to air on January 13th 2011 in the United Kingdom.
After news of the special came out, the singer’s estate fired an angry letter to Discovery and more than 9,000 fans promptly signed an online petition asking the network not to air it. John Branca and John McClain, who are co-executors of the estate, sent a letter to network president and CEO David Zaslav on Wednesday.
“Your decision to even schedule this program is in shockingly bad taste, insensitive to Michael’s family and appears motivated solely by your blind desire to exploit Michael’s death, while cynically attempting to dupe the public into believing this show will have serious medical value,” they wrote in a letter posted online.
“We were especially outraged when a sickening print advertisement for the program appeared making light of Michael’s death by depicting a corpse sprawled on a steel gurney covered by a sheet with a hand sticking out wearing Michael’s signature glove,” they added, calling the ad “debased, sick and insensitive.”
Jackson died of an overdose of prescription medicines in an L.A Mansion shortly before a sold-out string of dates at London’s O2 Arena. A new album of tracks, entitled “Michael” is out now.
