RELATED: ABCto FCC: Revamp Arbitrary, Inconsistent Indecency Policy
CBS:FCC Should Adopt 'Egregious Case' Indecency Enforcement Policy
NBC: FCCNeeds to Launch Indecency Enforcement Rulemaking
Fox has asked the FCC to dismiss all of its remaining
indecency complaints -- several hundred thousand remained at last check -- and
to get out of the business of regulating indecent content altogether.
It is not a new position for the network, which has long
argued the FCC's enforcement regime was chilling and unconstitutional, but it
was put rather forcefully in its latest input to the commission.
In comments June 19 on an FCC proposal to pursue only
"egregious" complaints, Fox said that is the least it could do. And
preferably, Fox said, the FCC should "conclude that it is legally
required, and logically bound, to cease attempting to enforce broadcast
indecency limits once and for all."
Given that the FCC's indecency enforcement power was rooted
in the medium's unique access to children, and given that the FCC is now
"just a small sliver of the panoply of video content available to an
average consumer today," and thus less uniquely and pervasively available
to children, the FCC should decide that it "no longer has any lawful
grounds to 'police' broadcast speech on the basis that it is indecent" and
admit that broadcasters should have the same First Amendment protections as any
other medium.
And even if the FCC does not cease and desist entirely, it
"should confine its interest, at most, to content that indisputably
includes an explicit portrayal of sexual or excretory organs or activities. The
Commission has no business attempting to regulate isolated or fleeting words or
images, nor should the FCC concern itself with innuendo or entendre. And in no
event should the Commission ever attempt to sanction content during live
programming or during news or public affairs programming."
As to the remaining complaints? The Supreme Court did not
throw out the FCC's indecency enforcement policy, but is said that the FCC had
not given sufficient notice of just how that policy would be applied. Given
that, said Fox, "regardless of the path it chooses to pursue going forward,
the Commission owes it to broadcasters and the Supreme Court to dismiss
whatever remains of the backlog of pending indecency cases."
Actually, the FCC asked for input on various options,
including that scaled-back approach as well as continuing with the policy of
pursuing fleeting nudity and adjectival profanity that stemmed from the Golden
Globes decision on Bono swearing on that awards show and the Janet Jackson
Super Bowl halftime show reveal on CBS.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski adopted the
"egregious" policy last fall in part as a way to work through over a
million complaints that had backed up while the courts worked through various
challenges to those indecency decisions and others.
Not surprisingly, that position was a red flag to the
Parents Television Council, which has frequently complained about Fox
programming, both to the FCC and to the media.
"Fox is trying to re-litigate the Supreme Court cases
that it lost, rather than addressing the proposal by the FCC to focus only on
'egregious' instances of indecency," said Parents Television Council
president Tim Winter. "Fox has been making the same arguments for 10 years
and have [sic] already been rebuffed by the Supreme Court not once but twice.
Why won't Fox and the other networks simply abide by the common sense decency
law? If they can't, then they are unworthy of holding a license to use the
public's airwaves."
