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Turn the FCC Loose in Europe and the US National Debt Would Soon Become a SurplusFor less than a split second of seeing Janet Jackson’s pierced nipple aired by CBS at the Super Bowl, the FCC fines the network $550,000. Gee, it makes one wonder how it would react watching the hardcore sex on France’s Canal Plus or the softcore sex that even some European public stations broadcast.
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Is Excessive Violence Indecent?When Americans talk about making cuts in their TV programs it is basically for its sexual content. In Europe, the sex is ok, it’s the excessive violence that causes problems.Europeans don’t have too many problems showing whatever sexual scenes mainstream Hollywood shoots, whether its for movies or television. But all that vicious violence, killings, beatings – is that all necessary? Does it have to be so graphic? Does it contribute to violence in our society? Back in the early 1970s, these questions started to be asked in European capitals as television stations – then mostly public broadcasters – asked themselves just how much violence was acceptable/necessary in television programs. And did that violence spur violence on their streets? In those days Sweden’s Sveriges Radio was one of the first to restrict buying various popular American programs because it believed those programs contained too much violence. At the same time it had no problem running Swedish movies early in the evening that might feature full frontal nudity, male and female. . The human body is the human body, the reasoning went. What harm from showing that? And what good does society get out of seeing excessive violence? Indeed, perhaps it could do some harm? So, sex was in and excessive violence out. Different cultures. Different thinking. Phil Stone |
How influential are those lobby groups? The US Senate voted 99-1 to increase fines per indecency incident more than 8-fold. The House of Representatives voted for even higher fines. What elected official in his/her right mind would vote against Parents and Family? That’s just too large a voting bloc!
Thankfully, Washington being Washington, other media regulations were attached to the fine-increase legislation, so even though the House and Senate agreed eventually on 10-fold increases in indecency fines, because they could not agree on other media measures that had been attached to the legislation the whole thing got thrown out.
But the mood in Washington is such that the Senate, not content with the public airwaves, unanimously voted to restrict violence on cable/satellite before 10 p.m., knowing full well that the US Supreme Court in 1994 specifically ruled that cable content was beyond the reach of the regulators.
It’s because of that ruling that US producers can give us shows like the HBO-produced hit, The Sopranos, which has been sold around the world. No way could that show have been made under FCC guidelines without big-time language and nudity cuts. The HBO comedy sexual success, Sex and City, is going into US re-runs via the public airwaves, but only after massive cutting to get rid of the “dirty” parts.
And that is as good an example as any to illustrate how current FCC actions are going to affect global television. Look for Hollywood producers to tone down their language and sex scenes for television transmitted over the public airwaves. The networks are not going to take a chance that the FCC declares a program lewd. Might cable/satellite pick up the sexual “slack”? Maybe, but with Congressional talk of trying to regulate cable/satellite programs they might want to lay low for a while. It might eventually take another Supreme Court decision to confirm who can control what as networks appeal against their FCC sanctions.
So, the net result of the FCC actions is that Hollywood and the television networks are basically running scared; television stations are also afraid of running afoul of the FCC – they don’t want fines and they don’t want a hard time when they apply to renew their licenses – so most live events, including news, now carry a few seconds time delay. No more nipples or dirty talk should get through!.
One point almost lost in all this. Of the 107 million US households that have at least one television, only about 12% rely on antennas – the public airwaves. Everyone else uses cable or satellite.
CBS has gone to the federal appeals court and asked that its $550,000 fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction be set aside.
But in order to file the appeal the network has had to pay the fine.
The FCC said it would ask the appeals court to uphold the fine.
In June President Bush signed a bill passed by Congress that mandates fines tenfold for radio and television broadcasters that air extensive profanity or sexual content that the FCC says violate decency standards.
That caused some stations to edit Bush’s use of the word “shit” when an open microphone caught an informal conversation at the G8 Conference in St. Petersburg earlier this month between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The FCC, under new leadership, has upheld its decision to fine 20 CBS stations $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl. And it has proposed a record $3.6 million fine against 111 CBS stations that aired a show suggesting teenagers were participating in a group sex orgy.
New FCC chairman Kevin Martin said the idea of the fines was to let stations know what the FCC sees as permissible, and what is not.
The FCC said it had received more than 300,000 complaints against shows ranging from award programs where guests uttered profanities, to sultry Latin music videos. Most of the complaints came from organized groups that applauded the FCC’s actions.
The networks said they would appeal and CBS reiterated in the Jackson affair it would pursue all remedies necessary.
Congress has yet to pass a new Bill that would increase indecency fines by up to 10 times current levels, but there is a proposal in the Senate to include cable and satellite within the stricter standards for terrestrial television.
And although Congress hasn’t acted yet, the FCC has signaled it is ready to take a tougher line by hiring an anti-pornography activist as a special adviser in the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis.— the office that helps develop FCC policy. The activist, Penny Nance, founded Kids First Coalition, and she has been active with Christian lobby groups.
Meanwhile, indecency complaints to the FCC dropped sharply in the first quarter of 2005 (157,650 complaints), compared to the last quarter of 2004 (317,833 complaints. In Q1 2004 with the Janet Jackson furor at the Super Bowl there were 693,080 complaints. The FCC believes the main reason for the drop in complaints is a drop in email campaigns by various lobby groups.
In 2004 the FCC levied indecency fines approaching $8 million – five times more than what it had levied in the past years combined.
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