initially driven a UK press reaction against the attempted censorship, when export orders began to be cancelled, the press began to question whether it had been right to show the film. British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington found the film "deeply offensive", he "wished it had never been shown", but "to ban a film because we do not like it or even because it hurts our friends" was not an option for the country's government. Similarly, the US government received enormous political pressure from Saudi Arabia to censor its broadcast. On 8 May 1980, Mobil Oil placed an advertisement in The New York Times and other newspapers condemning the film, which it described as "a new fairy tale". It quoted a letter to the New Statesman by Penelope Mortimer, who had worked with Thomas on the film: While Buschow had advised Thomas on the making of the film, she later told the Associated Press that it should not have been made, adding that "it achieved nothing but discord... every family has a black sheep, and this is a large family of around 5,000 people". After some stalling, it was eventually broadcast by the PBS programme World in most of the US on 12 May 1980, with only 16 out of 200 PBS stations choosing not do so. In one example, South Carolina Educational Television canceled the broadcast of the film across its network, a decision influenced by fact that the then-U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, John C. West, had formerly been the state's Governor. Among the other PBS stations chose not to air the film were KUHT in Houston, Texas, KLCS in Los Angeles, California, & Alabama Public Television Network In the Netherlands, NOS showed the programme, with the broadcaster claiming that there had been "no controversy about it here" and that it had not been contacted by the Saudi Government. However, in Sweden, the rights were bought, at a premium, by a video company, Scanvideo, which decided that the economy "would suffer great harm if it were shown, and decided that it must not be shown". By contrast, the film was shown in neighbouring Norway by public broadcaster NRK. In Australia, the programme was shown on the Seven Network, although the acting Prime Minister, Doug Anthony, asked the channel not to show it, as it might jeopardise trade deals with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. He denounced the