The Bible Text Publicity Mission is sorry to inform its supporters and friends that CBS Outdoor Limited has withdrawn our current ‘much looked forward to’ poster display on the Tyne and Wear Metro at the insistence of the Train Operating Company Nexus.  Nexus has recently imposed a no religious advertising condition on its system.  The Bible Text Publicity Mission will not be charged for this advertising Campaign.  There has been a loss of stock because the posters were already ‘up’ and could not be removed without being rendered unusable.  Compensation for this will be made by CBS Outdoor.

 

The design was submitted for approval to CBS poster approval to ensure that there was nothing in it which was illegal or which could give rise to offence. The design passed CBS’ inspection without modification.  The contract was signed in early 2010 and in the intervening months before the campaign start on 22.11.2011 no servant or employee of CBS Outdoor contacted the Bible Text Publicity Mission to query the contractual legitimacy of the Campaign.  The Mission had no reason to assume that there was or would be a change to the rules. On the contrary the joint campaign with MEMO in September 2009 was warmly welcomed by commuters and a record number of people received help from our help desk.  The Bible Text Publicity Mission is regulated by the Charity Commission and is not allowed to do anything that is not for the public benefit.  It is difficult therefore to understand the grounds of the objection given that the public display of the scripture on the railways dates back to at least 1924.  

 

If you commute on the Tyne and Wear Metro and would like to see our Bible posters in future we suggest that you write to Nexus and let them know this.  The Executive Council of the Bible Text Publicity Mission is actively considering the impact of this ban on our ancient religious and civil liberties.

 

As far as we know (27.11.2010) our mainline displays on stations contracted to JCDecaux remain unaffected.

 

I take this opportunity to wish the Directors and Staff of Nexus a deep and meaningful understanding of the true meaning of Christmas.