RobDale says "They have the option NOT to participate."

Washington Post article said:

"Producers of CBS's "Late Show With David Letterman" canceled musician Ani DiFranco's scheduled appearance tonight after he folk singer refused to substitute a more "upbeat" song for one about racism."

Having your confirmed booking cancelled at the last minute by network censors isn't the same as "exercising an option not to participate" in free speech terms.

MBWAGI, if Ani submitted the three songs *prior* to being offered a confirmed booking on the show, and she subsequently was given confirmation based upon the three songs she did submit, CBS censors may well have gotten cold feet, and backed out at the last minute.

And that is censorship.

Now, if there is some confusion over whether or not the offer extended to Ani was tenative based upon network censor approval, the censorship/free speech argument isn't as strong, because then Ani would have had the ability to choose whether to appear or not.

I find it hard to believe CBS wouldn't have already confirmed Ani on the basis of the 3 songs she submitted. Standard bookings have to be confirmed far enough in advance for scheduling purposes, for tech arrangements to be made for the musician's appearance on the show, etc.

So I believe there may well have been last minute jitters which resulted in CBS censoring Ani.

I also believe Ani is savvy enough to have calculated all that in advance, and accepted the booking arrangement knowing she wouldn't really lose anything whether she appeared and did the song, or wasn't allowed to appear and got to claim censorship.

Either way, more people will now want to hear the song. And will buy Ani's CDs, go looking for the MP3 to download, etc.

The song will likely also get a much more favorable airing now in the court of public opinion, than if she had just appeared on the show and sang the song. If she had done the latter, I think the reaction against both her and the song would have been extremely negative in the court of public opinion, because her song is as "in yer face" as Ani is, and is intended to provoke strong reactions, especially among people who watch Letterman.

Ani is *not* stupid, and she has demonstrated before how she can effectively manipulate both the political spin and the music buzz around her to her own advantage. It's pretty much been the strategy she has used to sell her records without major label support, and it is still working quite well, if this circumstance is anything to go by.