The actor Alec Baldwin has boycotted the Emmy awards after the event's broadcaster, Fox News, refused to air a joke he made about the phone-hacking scandal at News International.
Baldwin was to be part of an opening video for the ceremony but said he was disappointed when Fox News bosses announced they were selectively editing his opening address, which had been recorded days in advance.
The actor immediately asked that his appearance be cut altogether from the show.
In a message on Twitter Baldwin suggested that Fox – which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the parent company of News International – was wrong to take out the joke. He wrote: "If I were enmeshed in a scandal where I hacked phones of families of innocent crime victims purely for profit, I'd want that to go away too.
"I think it would have made them look better. A little."
A Fox spokeswoman said the reference was removed because News Corporation was taking the hacking allegations "seriously" and did not want to appear to be making jokes about them.
The actor and film director Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original Star Trek, was brought in as Baldwin's replacement.
Baldwin was not at the Emmys because of a previous commitment to attend Tony Bennett's birthday party in New York.
Mark Burnett, producer of the Emmys TV broadcast, said, "There's nonstop drama, but everything is fine," when asked about the incident.
