ABC won't be getting any trouble from the Federal Communications Commission
over its November sweeps fashion show featuring scantily clad Victoria's Secret
models sauntering down a runway.
The prime time stunt generated hundreds of electronic-mail protests to the
FCC and roughly 20 formal complaints, as well as big ratings.
The FCC explained in e-mailed notices Thursday that the complainants had
not demonstrated that "the sexual aspects of the material were, in context, so
graphic or explicit as to be patently offensive."
Although the FCC took no action against ABC, commissioner Michael Copps -- who
has made tougher indecency enforcement a goal -- said he hopes the network "will
find the strong reaction of the American people reason to exercise
self-restraint."
The commission also dismissed an indecency complaint
against shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge for his "Roadkill Barbeque" contest in
February 2001.
A complainant argued that participants:
- compared the texture of squirrel meat to a man's penis
- referred to bestiality and
- slaughtered a wild boar.
The FCC said none of the program's references were "inescapable innuendo'
with a 'singular, indecent" meaning.
Three weeks ago, a Florida jury found the DJ, a.k.a. Todd Clem, not guilty of
animal cruelty for the boar killing.
