"Can you say that on TV?" An Examination of the FCC's Enforcement with Respect to Broadcast Indecency

Summary of Testimony Presented to The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet

by L. BRENT BOZELL, III
President & Founder of The Parents Television Council

January 28, 2004

1) The FCC needs to start monitoring what's on broadcast television with funds stemming from its $278 million annual budget. It shouldn't be up to the public to point out the violations on the airwaves.  It should be up to the FCC to find them.

2) The FCC needs stop playing games with the public by:

a) Responding to each and every complaint.  Thousands upon thousands of people filing complaints hear nothing. 

b) Being clear on the requirements for filing a complaint. The Chairman of the FCC claims that it's absolutely false that complainants have to transcript of the actual show in question, and yet if you look at the FCC website, that's exactly what it instructs the public to do.

c) Stop playing games with numbers.  The FCC reported that in the second quarter of 2003 it received only 351 complaints about broadcast indecency.  That was preposterous, simply untrue.  In that same period, PTC members alone filed over 8,000 complaints.    

d) The FCC must be told to stop blocking complaints.  Recently we were told by many of our supporters that their e-mailed complaints were being returned as "undeliverable."  When we looked into this we were told by a source within the FCC that they were being blocked deliberately.

3) Third, the FCC must be told to start enforcing the law by attaching meaningful fines to those who are violating the public trust with deliberate indecencies on broadcast television.  The $27,000 maximum fine is a joke, and everyone knows it. The FCC must be told in no uncertain terms that it has the obligation to do that to protect the public airwaves.  Moreover, Congress should insist that the FCC fine stations for each violation.  If a shock-jock uses the "s" word ten times on his show, his station should receive ten fines, not one.

4) Finally, the FCC must get serious about revoking station licenses for those who refuse to abide by standards of decency.  The use of the public airwaves is not an entitlement, a right.  It is a privilege, and a privilege to be honored.  Rather than giving networks more stations as a reward for their irresponsible behavior, perhaps the Congress ought to consider steps to reduce the number of stations allowed for those continuously spitting in the public's face.

Full Testimony Presented to The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
 

Chairman Upton and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to testify on this important issue. 

I represent the Parents Television Council's 850,000 members, along with untold millions of parents who, like me, are disgusted, revolted, fed up, horrified -- I don't know how to underscore this enough -- by the raw sewage, ultra violence, graphic sex, and raunchy language that is flooding into our living rooms night and day.

A major responsibility of the FCC is to ensure that those who use the public airwaves adhere to standards of decency.  Yet, looking at the FCC's track record on indecency enforcement, it becomes painfully apparent that the FCC could care less about community standards of decency or about protecting the innocence of young children.

In the past two years, the FCC has received literally hundreds of thousands of complaints of broadcast indecency from fed-up, angry, frustrated parents, yet the FCC hasn't seen fit to agree with a single complaint.  In fact, in the entire history of the FCC this agency has never -- never—fined a single television station in the continental United States for broadcast indecency.

In the FCC's view, everything on broadcast TV is –and always has been – decent. This is ludicrous.

The FCC is a toothless lion and its non-actions are not only irresponsible, they're inexcusable.  Either the FCC has no idea what it's doing, or it just doesn't care what the public thinks.  There's no third explanation.

Indecencies and obscenities are now everywhere on broadcast TV.  This past year, the Parents Television Council released a series of three Special Reports looking at the State of the Television Industry.  Sex on TV has become increasingly explicit, with children exposed to more direct references to genitalia, prostitution, pornography, oral sex, kinky practices, masturbation, and depictions of nudity during prime time viewing hours – and yes, that includes the so-called "Family Hour" -- than they would have been just a few short years ago.  Foul language during the family viewing hour alone increased by 95% between 1998 and 2002

Thanks to some envelope-pushing shows you can now hear words like "asshole" and "bullshit" on primetime broadcast TV.  Live awards shows are pushing the boundaries of acceptable language for broadcast TV by "accidentally" allowing the "f" and "s" words to slip past network censors.  The "f" word has been used on broadcast television four times in the last year alone. 

The broadcast networks are laughing at the public because they know they can do or say whatever they want to over the broadcast airwaves and the FCC won't lift a finger to penalize them. 

And it's not just the late night dramas that are pushing standards downward. 

Consider the following, which aired on an NBC special this past May at 8:00 – during the so-called Family Hour.   In this scene, Dana Carvey appears as one of his old Saturday Night Live characters, "Church Lady," to talk to former child star Macaulay Culkin about his sleepovers with Michael Jackson.  

Church Lady: "Did he ever dangle anything in front of you at the sleepovers?"
Culkin: "Dangle what?"
Church Lady: "Oh, I don't know.  Say, his ‘happy man loaf'?  …When he moon-walked, he didn't moon you as he walked, did he? ...How about your friends you took to the sleepovers.  Did he ever get into Billy's jeans?"

Second guest, Michael Imperioli: "I mean come on, you trying to tell me you're screwing your little jingle bells up against the King of Pop and his shalonz never rose up to salute you? Come on, man.  Side by side on the Sealy Posturepedic, you never played ‘hide the toast'? Give me a break."

Church Lady: "Alrighty, well, I think it's time to ‘Beat It.'"

What child needs to be exposed to this?  Is pedophilia now a laughing matter?  Would you want to have to explain to your youngster what "hide the toast" means?  Nevertheless, this was broadcast over the public airwaves – the public's airwaves -- right into the family home, "the one place," according to the Supreme Court, "where people ordinarily have the right not to be assaulted by uninvited and offensive sights and sounds."

My libertarian instinct makes me uncomfortable with the notion of coming before Congress to ask for your help, but I do so now, on behalf of tens of millions of parents, simply because it's time that Congress inserted itself to halt this growing problem.  The Congress, pure and simple, needs to insist that the FCC do its job correctly. 

What should the FCC be doing that it's not doing presently?

It begins with the need for the FCC to start monitoring what's on broadcast television.  The FCC has a whopping $278 million + annual subsidy from the Congress, yet somehow can't find the time or the resources to monitor what's on broadcast television.  (Parenthetically, let me point out that with a budget of approximately two percent of the FCC's, the Parents Television Council manages to do it.)

It shouldn't be up to the public to point out the violations on the airwaves.  It should be up to the FCC to find them. 

How disinterested is the FCC in its responsibility to monitor indecency on television?  Even with that $278 million annual subsidy. The FCC apparently still can't afford to have a single person working full time on this issue.  Not a one.  That fact comes to us from the FCC directly.

Second, the FCC needs to start responding to complaints instead of playing games with the public.  I have been promised personally by Chairman Powell that every complaint would get a response, and yet on a regular basis, thousands upon thousands of people filing complaints hear nothing.  I refer you to our report, Dereliction of Duty, which documents how the FCC has sat on thousands of complaints going back almost two years.

While accepting an award during the December 2002 Billboard Music Awards on Fox, pop-star Cher said, "People have been telling me I'm on the way out every year, right?  So f*ck ‘em." How long should it have taken the FCC to decide if this was indecent?  The answer is: quite a while, apparently.  It's been over a year and the FCC has yet to act on it.

The FCC must also be told to stop playing games with the public when it comes to filing complaints.  The Chairman of the FCC assured me personally that it was absolutely false that the FCC was requiring the public to attach a transcript of the actual show in question, something that is virtually impossible for a complainant to have handy at the moment.  And yet if you look at the FCC website, that's exactly what it instructs the public to do.

The FCC must be told to stop playing games with numbers.  The FCC reported that claimed that in the second quarter of 2003 it received only 351 complaints about broadcast indecency.  That was preposterous, simply untrue.  In that same period, PTC members alone filed over 8,000 complaints.  The FCC in turn lumped all of them in one basket and called it one complaint. 

The FCC must be told to stop blocking – yes, blocking – complaints, too!  Recently we were told by many of our supporters that their e-mailed complaints were being returned as "undeliverable."  When we looked into this we were told by a source within the FCC that they were being blocked deliberately.

Third, the FCC must be told to start enforcing the law by attaching meaningful fines to those who are violating the public trust with deliberate indecencies on broadcast television.  The $27,000 maximum fine is a joke, and everyone knows it. It is most welcome news, Chairman Upton, that you are proposing that fine be increased tenfold and that the fines be increased up to $3 million for continued offenses. But the fact remains that all is for naught so long as the FCC refuses to levy fines when appropriate.  The FCC must be told in no uncertain terms that it has the obligation to do that to protect the public airwaves.  Moreover, Congress should insist that the FCC fine stations for each violation.  If a shock-jock uses the "s" word ten times on his show, his station should receive ten fines, not one.

Finally, the FCC must get serious about revoking station licenses for those who refuse to abide by standards of decency.  The use of the public airwaves is not an entitlement, a right.  It is a privilege, and a privilege to be honored.  Rather than giving networks more stations as a reward for their irresponsible behavior, perhaps the Congress ought to consider steps to reduce the number of stations allowed for those continuously spitting in the public's face.

I am a father of five who has spent twenty five years trying to shield my children from offensive messages coming across the airwaves I own.  God willing, I'll be a grandfather some day.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if my grandchildren didn't have to endure such abuse?  If the Congress takes the appropriate steps to force the FCC to do its job, the public trust will be protected and this assault on decency will come to an end.  Only Congress can do that, too.

And if you do, an entire generation of grandparents, parents, and their children will thank you for it.

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