Add former FCC Chairman Michael Powell to the list of folks taking aim at the FCCs' fleeting indecency policy.
In the wake of the Second Circuit court's decision that the policy, as applied in a sanction for swearing in a Fox awards show and generally, was unconstitutional, Powell, in an opinion piece for the New York Times, called the fleeting expletive policy "a mistake."
That is the policy the FCC under then-chairman Kevin Martin outlined after Powell's 2004 commission reversed its earlier decision that swearing by Bono on an NBC awards show was not indecent because it was fleeting. That policy was then applied to swearing on the Fox awards show.
Powell suggests that reversal was due to political pressure: "When Bono used profane language on television, my staff ruled that it was not indecent, and a political firestorm ensued. The Federal Communications Commission reversed the decision and crafted a new policy that fleeting expletives could be indecent."
Full story:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/455034-Powell_Fleeting_Indecency_Policy_Was_a_Mistake.phpYep. This is the same Michael Powell who
announced he'd investigate the Janet Jackson exposure incident the morning after the Super Bowl in 2004. Apparently, this whole indecency hullabaloo was more about playing politics than justice.
It seems that moral controversies served as distractions from more important issues. In 1998 and '99, guess which issue during the Clinton administration was more popular: Monica Lewinsky, vs. real foreign policy issues like the Kosovo War or Osama bin Laden's imminent threats (that led to 9/11 after Clinton left office)? And then came in the Illegitimate ChimpResident who destroyed Clinton's surplus with tax cuts and a war on false pretenses. He was lucky he could get away with lying about "Iraq's WMDs" and letting the military take innocent lives while the nation was outraged over bare breasts and sleaze on TV. However, the majority of FCC complaints, to tell the truth, have come from pressure groups like Parents Television Council and American Family Association in recent years. (And the FCC fined the NYC radio station over George Carlin's "7 Dirty Words" because of
ONE complaint from the father of a
15-year-old boy...and the father happened to be a member of the conservative group Morality in Media!)
Look. Just because a federal appeals court threw out a "fleeting expletives" policy does
NOT mean you'll be seeing
The Sopranos with its truckload galore of F-words and S-words at 7:30PM on CBS anytime as long as you'll live. It doesn't mean that radio stations will start playing uncensored gangsta rap or hardcore punk 24/7. It just draws a difference between a swear word accidentally blurted out on air vs. a scripted show using bad words (like the broadcast of "7 Dirty Words"). If anything, I'd be alright with the networks making efforts to mute out profanity with a slight delay (after all, doesn't live TV always have a slight delay anyways?). Even if it means muting out large bites at a time (like in this year's Grammy Awards during a rap performance)
Regarding profane language on British TV, the one time I've heard of Ofcom (the UK's FCC) penalising a network was
after Live Earth 2007. Generally BBC has just apologised for on-air profanities, such as
a clip of Christian Bale swearing on its morning
Breakfast show and an
unedited version of Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" on Radio 5 Live. Channel 4 has shown comedy shows after 9PM (the "watershed" time) with unbleeped profanities.
Oh, and in response to the one comment in the comments section saying "In the name of Lord, Save the indecency policy, and cancel all of Seth MacFarlane's immoral shows."
RELIGION!