Only in America....the government cracks down on content that MILLIONS of people pay extra money to enjoy on premium cable TV channels and video rentals.
Two-faced stumbling hypocrites. No hope they will grow up instead, I suppose.
New FCC Crackdown Targets
Broadcasters, 'Shock Jock' Stern
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOE FLINT
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amid a widening and increasingly politicized campaign to clean up the nation's airwaves, regulators are proposing fines against many of the nation's major radio companies for carrying well-known "shock jocks," according to Federal Communications Commission officials.
About a dozen cases are being finalized, these officials said, and one target is Howard Stern, one of the nation's most popular and controversial radio hosts. The FCC is deciding on penalties against his employer, Viacom Inc.'s Infinity Broadcasting. Also facing further scrutiny are Emmis Communications Inc. and Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio owner, which last week took Mr. Stern's show off six of its radio stations and fired a controversial -- and oft-fined -- Tampa, Fla., radio host, Todd Clem, known as "Bubba the Love Sponge."
'SHOCK' RADIO
See profiles of closely watched radio personalities who have been targeted by critics.
Bowing to public pressure, the agency also plans to reverse its earlier finding that singer Bono's use of a vulgarity on live television during the 2003 Golden Globes broadcast wasn't indecent, possibly as soon as next week, officials said. However, it won't impose what could have been a multimillion-dollar fine against General Electric Co.'s NBC network, which carried the event, or its affiliates.
The flurry of new cases is the latest sign of a sweeping federal crackdown on controversial content beamed over television and radio airwaves. Congress has held a spate of hearings in the last two months to decry what some legislators call a "race to the bottom" by broadcasters. While a move to act against questionable material had been under way before, it was ignited by this year's Super Bowl broadcast, in which entertainer Janet Jackson's breast was exposed during the halftime show to the embarrassment of broadcaster CBS, a Viacom unit, its affiliates and the FCC.
Feeding the push is an increasingly charged, and polarized, political atmosphere in which cultural issues such as obscenity and gay marriage have become hot topics as the general election campaign heats up. Lawmakers of both parties have been implicitly and in some cases openly threatening legislative action if regulators don't step up their enforcement of existing decency standards.
Given renewed Congressional pressure and amid criticism that it long has been too lax about standards, the FCC has stepped up its review of indecency complaints it receives. In a letter to Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) this week, FCC Chairman Michael Powell wrote that there were more than two dozen cases pending at the FCC at the end of last year that are in the final stages of investigation and that he "anticipated enforcement action in all or most of these cases within the next few months." Officials said the agency is facing statute-of-limitations issues on one or two of the pending cases if it doesn't wrap them up quickly.
Mr. Powell, who often has been a lightning rod for controversy as he has pushed for further deregulation of telecommunications, has of late taken a leading role in the obscenity debate, testifying before Congress and launching an investigation of Viacom over the Super Bowl show.
Meanwhile, a House subcommittee this week overwhelmingly passed a bill that would sharply increase the FCC's maximum indecency fine to $500,000 per incident, from the current $27,500, for each station and would include a "three strikes and you're out" provision that would revoke radio- and TV-station licenses for three offenses. The FCC fines stations, not individuals, for violations of its standards. Under those standards, "indecent" material generally refers to broadcasts containing sexual or excretory references that are aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m, when children are likely to be in the audience.
"This really is a grass-roots issue," said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat who has long been critical of broadcast indecency. "That's why Congress is spending all this time on it. We need to be on record that we're strong for enforcement."
By singling out Mr. Stern, who in the last three decades has become one of the industry's most widely heard and financially successful personalities, the commission clearly intends to send a message to all personalities who make their living with raunch. Broadcasters have been willing to take the risk of FCC heat for Mr. Stern's show because they make a lot of money off it, but lesser disc jockeys may not get the same leeway. Mr. Stern, who was fired by numerous stations before finding a patron saint in Infinity and now Viacom President Mel Karmazin, is heard on scores of stations in the country and broadcasts from Infinity's WXRK-FM New York. His show also is filmed and airs on the cable network E! Entertainment Television, majority-owned by cable giant Comcast Corp.
It is unclear what specific offense Mr. Stern would be targeted for, and officials said Viacom isn't expected to face a fine greater than $27,500. That's a pittance compared with some FCC fines that have totaled in the hundreds of millions. But it's significant because Mr. Stern hasn't been in serious trouble with the FCC since 1995, when Infinity settled a variety of indecency allegations against him for $1.7 million.
Mr. Stern's agent, Don Buchwald, said he was unaware of a new fine. But he said he wouldn't be surprised since his client has become, in his words, the FCC's "poster boy" for indecency. An Infinity spokesman declined to comment.
But Mr. Stern himself has been commenting loudly about the issue on an almost daily basis. During Thursday's program, he said his career will be up, along with his current contract, in two years given the current crackdown. He also has spoken of rallying listeners to mount what he calls a "Million Moron March" on the nation's capital.
So far, broadcasters have been taking the latest threats seriously. Thursday Clear Channel, which owns 1,200 stations, paid a total of $755,000 in fines related to Mr. Clem, who also had frequently been in trouble with regulators. At least one of the new FCC fines is expected to relate to him and at least one other Clear Channel personality, and the company could get hit with any fines levied against Mr. Stern as well.
"It's not a surprise [that] there are other complaints in the pipeline," said Andy Levin, Clear Channel's executive vice president of law and government affairs. "In retrospect, we should have adopted our zero-tolerance policy earlier."
An Emmis radio official said he was unaware of any pending fines against the company's 27 radio stations. But the company's Chicago on-air radio personality Eric Muller, known as "Mancow," has gotten into trouble several times with the FCC for on-air comments. Officials at Emmis, Viacom and Clear Channel have said they are educating their talent about staying out of trouble, with lectures about the indecency laws and contract changes making them financially liable for violations, among other steps.
In the case of Bono, all five FCC commissioners are in agreement in overturning a controversial October decision by the agency's enforcement bureau that found that Bono's curse didn't meet the test for indecency because it was fleeting and used in a nonsexual context. The ruling caused an uproar both among consumer groups and legislators, forcing the commission to revisit the issue.
In the order being finalized now, the FCC is expected to find that Bono's use of an expletive was both "indecent" and "profane," officials said. But they're expected not to fine NBC and its affiliates, which likely would have added up to millions of dollars given the number of stations that run the awards ceremony. An NBC spokesman said the network hasn't been notified about any decision by the commission. |
