The president of Clear Channel Radio told a House subcommittee Thursday that he was “ashamed” of one of his own programs as corporations and broadcast personalities struggled to adjust to a mushrooming backlash against perceived indecency on radio and television.
John Hogan was referring to the “Bubba the Love Sponge” show, the work of a Florida radio personality. Not coincidentally, that show already had been threatened with a proposed $755,000 fine from a newly energized Federal Communications Commission, and Clear Channel had fired the radio personality and announced plans for a policy that would require on-air talent to pay part of any fines levied.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee, which also heard from the heads of six television networks Thursday, indicated lawmakers had the votes to pass legislation to increase tenfold, to $275,000, the fine for each violation of FCC decency standards, to a maximum of $3 million.
Meanwhile, one day after being dropped from six radio stations as part of Clear Channel’s new “zero tolerance” policy, shock jock Howard Stern spent much of his Thursday show ranting against the media conglomerate, which is based in San Antonio and owns 1,200 stations nationwide.
Stern, who is syndicated by Clear Channel rival Infinity Broadcasting, a division of Viacom Inc., charged on his show that he was “under attack.” But Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told members of the subcommittee that reminding broadcasters of their responsibilities to comply with FCC rules on decency was “hardly McCarthyism.”
The appearance of Janet Jackson’s exposed breast on the CBS broadcast of the Super Bowl halftime show has snowballed into a major outcry against media indecency.
Still, some longtime campaigners for increased decency standards are not impressed.
“The people who have just discovered morality are the same people who have given us a rogue’s gallery of shock jocks and other indecencies,” said Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters. “It’s asking a lot for us to be impressed by their crocodile tears.”
But the idea that humbled network executives are ready to pull the plug on anything controversial has free-speech advocates–and creative types–terrified.
`I want to obey the law’
“I want to obey the law,” said Chicago radio personality Mancow Muller, whose often crude broadcasts have cost his employer, Emmis Communications, $42,000 in indecency fines. “I don’t want hassles from the government, [but] nobody can define the line. If you tell me the line, I won’t cross it.”
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists responded to the threats that artists could share financial liability for fines with a statement Thursday that said: “The responsibility for complying with FCC regulations rests with the employers. Our members aren’t responsible for programming the stations and they don’t hold a station’s license to broadcast on the public airwaves.”
On Wednesday, NBC had announced it would join the other major networks in a March 31 National Association of Broadcasters meeting aimed at cleaning up network standards.
“From an ethical perspective,” said Ralph Burns, the Utah-based editor of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, “responding to the threat of punishment is the lowest form of ethical behavior. That’s for children. As adults, we ought to be able to act well on our own.”
But broadcasters inevitably walk a fine line between the need for shows with popular appeal–especially to the notoriously crass tastes of the lucrative young male demographic–and their desire to be perceived as responsible corporate citizens.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell has issued a stern denunciation of the Super Bowl halftime show, saying he considered the entire show, not just Jackson’s exposed breast, offensive.
The commission is investigating the broadcast.
Powell also announced his desire to reverse an FCC staff ruling last year that singer Bono’s utterance of an expletive during a live broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards on NBC was not indecent.
Yet former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who served during the Clinton administration, said Powell was not always a proponent of aggressive action.
“Chairman Powell spent six years, three as a commissioner and three as a chairman,” arguing for a relaxed regulatory attitude, Hundt said. “Now he’s shocked to find out that `Sex and the City’ and the Super Bowl are pretty much the same show. He’s had what I call a Barcalounger conversion.”
More Top Picks Best Wood Stoves
Under FCC regulations and federal law, radio stations and traditional television networks cannot broadcast “obscene” material anytime and may not show “indecent” material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The rules do not apply to satellite or cable television networks or satellite radio.
Parents `sucker-punched’
“Parents were sucker-punched by what happened during the Super Bowl,” said Tim Winter, executive director of the Parents Television Council, a media watchdog based in Los Angeles. “This is a non-partisan issue. We have members on the right who are opposed to the lack of decency on moral grounds. And we have members on the left who are opposed on the grounds of what these shows do to the health and welfare of children.”
Some charge that the focus on morality has been politically engineered as a distraction from more serious issues. They say there’s a grave danger with mixing serious cultural flashpoints–such as the one over gay marriage–with the juvenile antics of the likes of Stern.
“There’s a real mishmash of political and moral issues in play,” said Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s important to distinguish between the triviality of Janet Jackson’s naked breast and the repression of minorities.”
Steven Bochco, creator and executive producer of ABC’s “NYPD Blue” and other top-rated shows, said: “What we’re dealing with now is a . . . hysterical over-reaction on the part of networks, who are responding to very real threats by the government.”
“NYPD Blue,” which debuted in 1993, was one of the first network dramas to push the boundaries of language and sexual content, featuring brief nudity and coarse language.
But Bochco said the network is now asking him to edit out scenes that would have passed muster before the Super Bowl.
“I am now being instructed to modify sexual content in our show that never would have been an issue a year ago,” he said. “They just don’t want the grief.”
– – –
FCC standards under the spotlight
The Super Bowl halftime show and sexually oriented radio programming have brought increased scrutiny of the FCC’s obscenity standards and enforcement.
FCC rules
OBSCENE MATERIAL
May never be broadcast
To meet the agency’s definition of obscenity, material must:
– Appeal to the prurient interest as defined by the average person.
– Depict or describe sexual conduct in an offensive way.
– Taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
INDECENT MATERIAL
May not be aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
It is defined as language or material that depicts sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is offensive as measured by community broadcast standards but does not rise to the level of obscenity.
FCC fines for indecency
Number of fines issued on complaints filed after Nov. 1999.
2000 1
2001 8
2002 10
2003 4
2004* 3
*To date
Source: Federal Communications Commission
More Top Picks Best Photo Backdrops
baiduhai