Word: broadcaster
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...that possible? The reason the government can regulate broadcast TV and radio at all is that it owns the air. The FCC licenses frequencies on the airwaves, a public resource. In return, broadcasters must meet public-service requirements and obey decency rules, which ban "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs." That's why the FCC can police four-letter words on NBC but not in a movie or this magazine. (Pornography is different, because the law distinguishes...
...know where the line is," says John Ridley, a novelist and a TV and film writer who has written for cable and broadcast, "and that's what's scaring people." To better draw the line, industry sources tell TIME, broadcasters are considering a court test case--possibly even trying to overturn the 1978 ruling that defined the FCC's indecency standard, on the grounds of inconsistency. "There are two difficulties" that the FCC faces, says a broadcast executive. "One is that extreme [regulatory] positions are going to run into constitutional problems. The second is inconsistent and vague rulings are going...
...last week Disney broke ranks with its media brethren and backed FCC regulation of cable--as an alternative to Congress imposing à la carte offerings. (Disney's cable holdings include tamer channels like ABC Family and The Disney Channel, but its ESPN often lets profanities fly.) Some broadcast executives, meanwhile, have called for decency control over cable so that they could better compete with cable channels. The greatest hope for those who want to extend the state's power over media may be in the fact that most executives would rather lose freedom than money...
...sexual fetish that involves adults wearing diapers and suckling at women's breasts. But the letter includes a curious argument: "COMPLAINANT urges the Commission to take notice of the high ratings for this episode of CSI ratings [sic]--reportedly viewed in 30.72 million households. Given its relatively early broadcast time [9 p.m. E.T.], it was without question viewed by millions of children...
That's one way of interpreting the number. Here's another: more than 30 million people watched the Feb. 17 episode of CSI, a show that has been on the air since 2000. It is probably the most gruesome, explicit drama on broadcast TV--and it is the single most popular. Did all those people tune in by accident? When the greatest plurality of viewers choose to watch a show they know to be graphic, can that show be beyond the pale? Or does COMPLAINANT simply not like where the pale is nowadays...