Networks turn tables on FCC

April 15, 2006

For months, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has quietly been waging a one-sided war against broadcast indecency. The [tag]networks[/tag], worried about government punishment and fines, have tried to keep the [tag]FCC[/tag] happy.

Yesterday, however, the networks reversed course and decided to go on the offensive.

In a move that seems certain to force a showdown over what constitutes indecency on the airwaves, four TV broadcast networks and their affiliates announced Friday that they had united to challenge a Federal Communications Commission ruling that deemed language used in several of their shows [tag]indecent[/tag].

CBS, Fox, ABC and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. filed notices of appeal in federal court in New York and Washington late Thursday and early Friday.

They are seeking to overturn a March 15 ruling that found some broadcasts of the CBS News program “The Early Show,” “Billboard Music Awards” on Fox and ABC’s drama “NYPD Blue” to be indecent because they contained variations on two [tag]obscenities[/tag]: what people on both sides of the issue refer to as the “F-word” and the “S-word.”

That March ruling seemed to be one step too far for the industry. In a joint statement released by more than 800 TV stations, the industry called the ruling unconstitutional and argued that any obscenities contained in the programs were “fleeting, isolated — and in some cases unintentional.”

“The FCC overstepped its authority in an attempt to regulate content protected by the 1st Amendment, acted arbitrarily and failed to provide broadcasters with a clear and consistent standard for determining what content the government intends to penalize,” the statement said.

Tom Fontana, a veteran producer, argues that the FCC’s threats and penalties have led to a chilling effect. Without yesterday’s lawsuits, Fontana said, “are we one step away from the FCC telling NBC’s Brian Williams that he can’t do a story about teen sex because it’s indecent?”

This one has all the makings of a great legal fight. Something to keep an eye on.

Hope it doesn’t end up in front of some Scalia-wannabe.

The networks, through their willing acceptance of right wing spin and cooperation with the rest of the right wing noise machine, have done a huge amount of the heavy lifting that helped put theocrats in charge of both the FCC and the courts. They helped create this monster, see how they like it when it targets them.

  • Perhaps it’s because I’m an old woman, but I find indecent language in movies and TV to be distracting. Indecent language hides the fact that the writers are not original enough to express their thoughts in language that offends no one in the audience. After all, Jimmy Cagney didn’t have to use the f-word once to project his evilness in his gangster movies.

  • I agree with Fallenwoman that Americans tend to go for a cheap, over-used shot when real writing/acting would produce greater effects.

    But as long as we’re becoming a more juvenile nation, “poop” words and such go with the territory. To think that the FCC can identify seven of them, and let it go at that, is naive.

    Mike Mallone, on Air America (or at least the station that brings us Air America here in the northwest, after 10pm), constantly expresses his rage by referring to “these lying, testicular-challenged sons of bitches” by which he means the GOP. The English language is too rich with directly vulgar or poetically suggestive words for any government bureaucracy to ever control (though the Taliban could).

    The only control which works is self-restraint, i.e., taste … and I see damned little evidence of that as I walk across campus and hear women (not men, oddly) students talking language that would burn the ears off the late ’40s soldiers I sold papers to and shined shoes for at Camp Roberts CA.

    If it’s any comfort to those worrying about cultural decay, read a well-annotated version of Scene One of Romeo and Juliet, a play written not only for the elite but performed for the uneducated masses as well.

    Whenever I get on this topic I’m reminded that some sort of women’s auxiliary to Forest Lawn Cemetery (Los Angeles) years ago hired a sculptor to reproduce Michelangelo’s David in yellow marble. Apparently the first time anyone there noticed that David had no clothes, the ladies ordered that the offending organ be covered. A stark white (like plaster of Paris) fig-leaf was promptly bolted over the penis. America … ya gotta love it!

  • jimBOB is right on, to a point, that the network OWNERS have created this monster. As for Fallenwoman, just change the channel if it offends you. I wish we could all go back to the days of Cagney and Bogie; we can’t, and the language police were even more outrageous then in disregarding our Constitutional protections.

    I say that in addition to the networks pushing back against the FCC, WE as citizens need to push back against both the FCC and the networks on two (maybe three) issues:

    1. The so-called “fairness doctrine” needs to be reinstituted, on the television airwaves but also — maybe especially — on the radio. For too long since Reagan’s “revolution” dumped the Fairness Doctrine, the corporate owners of the broadcast licenses have allowed the RightWingNoiseMachine almost exclusive access by Rethugs and the American Taliban to Americans’ homes and ears, and closed out the Dems and progressives. This has NOT served America well at all; in fact, it is one of the main causes of people voting against their economic interests — they are kept in the dark, fed bullshit, and the lies spread.

    2. The FCC licenses issued to the corporate broadcasters are issued for free, and the broadcasters MUST demonstrate that the licenses have been used in the public interest. The FCC simply MUST, as a matter of public policy, mandate that campaign ads/debates be aired without charge to the candidates (or, in the case of referenda on the ballot, to proponents and opponents). This can be done as an overhaul of campaign finance law (especially where ALL election campaigns are publicly financed in toto), or as a stand-alone requirement for FCC-licensees. The requirements can be tailored to fit the size of the media market, the number of stations in the market, the number of candidates/proposals on the ballots, etc. This has to be done as a matter of the best interests of the public.

    3. Pending the implementation of the above two standards, WE the public ought to sue each and every radio or TV station/network, billboard owner and other media that refuse to accept advertisements on some pretext that the ads are “issue oriented” or otherwise violate some corporate ideology (usually right-wing). These outfits operate either with a de jure public license (FCC issued) or a de facto public trust (newspapers, etc., are allowed certain privileges and protections that you and I as private citizens do not enjoy. The media’s ability to limit our access is also a violation of our public trust, and is not in the public interest. Time to sue them, and see if we can get Scalia to wake up to OUR reality.

    Any feedback, Mr. C.B., or others here? I’m not holding my breath waiting for these ideas to take root, but am I wacky and barking at the moon, or do these ideas have merit?

  • Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the sweet rumblings of disconnects between big business and the religious right-wing of the Republican Party.

    Pass the popcorn.

  • Bravo Castor Troy!!!

    This is exactly how to drive a wedge in their Grover Norquist Wednesday Morning Breakfast coalition. I want those bastards flinging eggs and tangerines at each other next week.

    The modern Repug party is an unlikely coalition between:

    1) The Gods: fundamentalist Christian religious fanatics

    2) The Guns: Neocon militarists and their domestic NRA allies… the trigger happy.

    3) The Greed: the real power in the coalition… our Corporate Feudal Overlords.

    The only thing they all have in common is a really male-dominated, macho, authoritarian, harsh, elitist, militarist, proto-fascist view of the world. They do share some common goals: an autocratic, dictatorial private military and police force owned and operated by corporations (which are basically autocratic organisations themselves). But each of these 3 groups would run a dictatorship very differently. Their policies are in conflict all the time!

    Now is the time to exaggerate those conflicts, to force them to turn into outright civil war within the Repug party. It is the only way to take back our country.

    I predict that (3) The Greeds– our Corporate Feudal Lords– will walk away as winners of *any* conflict with the other two groups. After all, money walks, and bullshit talks, and the Greeds are full of money whilst the Gods and the Guns are full of shit.

    Here are the issues we should be humping madly over the next year, in order to alienate the Money Men from the rest of their wacko crew:

    – Immigration… Corporate America profits handsomely off of the near-slave-labour of undocumented immigrants. They don’t give a damn about their rights or their lives, but they’ll violently resist any attempt to keep them out or kick them out.

    – Plan B… over-the-counter morning-after contraception is a huge potential moneymaker for Big Pharma, and they’re on our side!

    – Stem Cell research… biotech’s biggest potential moneymaker. The riches that await Big PHRMA in “miracle cures” from stem cell research could be substantial.

    – “Indecency” and censorship of the media. Sex sells; any attempt to limit it cuts directly into their profits, and they won’t stand for that.

    – The war on terra… maybe. Some big businesses (Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed/Martin) make fabulous riches off of neocon Oil Wars; others (consumer products companies?) are really hurt by a wartime economy. This could potentially open up a conflict *within* the Corporate Overlords… our next step after we destroy the Grover Norquist coalition.

    Any others?

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