4-2-13
Perhaps the FCC's indecency policy will not stay vague forever. The Commission is seeking public comment on whether its indecency rules are consistent with the 1st Amendment. The definition of indecency is defined so many different ways by so many different people, groups and politically motivated organizations. The request for public comment seems to at least indicate that outgoing FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has pushed the commission to consider whether changes should be made to the FCC's current broadcast indecency policies. Since September 2012, the commission has dismissed about one million indecency complaints.
Broadcast attorney John Garziglia tells Radio Ink the broadcasting community had hoped the Supreme Court would answer the question of what constitutes indecency last year. "The Supreme Court decision, however, only
held that neither Fox nor ABC had sufficient notice that the fleeting use of profanity during an awards show, or the seven seconds of nude buttocks during a drama, would be deemed indecent under the FCC?s indecency restrictions. That was the easy way out."
The Supreme Court decision specifically did not find the FCC?s indecency regulations unconstitutional nor unable to be enforced by the FCC. Garziglia says, "The Supreme Court basically punted. "That issue was the constitutionality of the entire scheme of the FCC?s regulation of broadcast indecency. Now the issue as to what constitutes broadcast indecency is back at the FCC. The essential indecency question which the FCC will now presumably seek to answer is why the repeated broadcast of expletives in the fictional movie Saving Private Ryan is not indecent, while the same word uttered by real-life blues musicians on a public television documentary is. The good news is that the FCC is seeking the opinion of broadcasters and the public as to whether the FCC should make changes to its current broadcast indecency policies, whatever those are. It may be time that the same content standards that apply to newspapers, cable, and the Internet, apply equally to broadcasting."
Read the FCC's Public Notice HERE
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