It’s been a rough few weeks for the indecency police, with the F-word and bare breasts getting thrown around repeatedly in federal court, in administrative agencies and even in the halls of Congress.
The Third Circuit is currently mulling over the consequences of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Superbowl, while the Second Circuit recently decided it’s not so bad to say “fuck,” fleetingly, at least, on TV. That decision has sent the FCC to the Supreme Court for review, while the House busied itself sponsoring bills declaring that the F-word is always indecent, no matter how fleeting.
A little background is in order:
Until a few years ago, lawyers for broadcast radio and TV networks could rest pretty well assured that the occasional expletive accidentally uttered on a live program, while never free from viewer complaints, could at least escape heavy scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC on a number of occasions had rejected fines for so- called “fleeting expletives,” such as the instance of a news announcer on a Paso Robles CA station who uttered “Oops, fucked that one up.” Lincoln Dellar, Renewal of License for Stations KPRL(AM) and KDDB(FM), 8 FCC Rcd 2582 (ASD, MMD 1993).
The FCC’s relaxed attitude toward such “accidents” was so much a part of its practice that in a rare policy statement issued by the agency in April 2001, it actually committed it to paper: “Repetition of and persistent focus on sexual or excretory material have been cited consistently as factors that exacerbate the potential offensiveness of broadcasts. In contrast, where sexual or excretory references have been made once or have been passing or fleeting in nature, this characteristic has tended to weigh against a finding of indecency.” In the Matter of Industry Guidance on the Commission’s Case Law Interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 1464 and Enforcement Policies Regarding Broadcast Indecency, EB-00-IH-0089 (April 6, 2001).
Thus, when Cher picked up an award at the “Billboard Music Awards” broadcast by Fox in December 2002 with a breezy, “People have been telling me I’m on the way out every year, right? So fuck ‘em,” or when Bono took the stage at the January 2003 “Golden Globe Awards” broadcast by NBC and bellowed, “This is really, really fucking brilliant,” there was relative silence from the FCC.
During the following five months, as the ABC program “NYPD Blue” used the word “bullshit” in six different episodes, the FCC murmured that the word was indecent, but declined to fine the broadcasters. And in December 2003, when Fox broadcast Nicole Ritchie at the “Billboard Awards” explaining, “Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It’s not so fucking simple,” the FCC calmly explained that such isolated uses of profanity “did not warrant FCC action.”
Television watchdog groups begged to differ. In October 2003, the Parents Television Council, a conservative non-profit dedicated to “restoring decency to the entertainment industry,” asked the FCC to reverse its decision on Bono’s comments. In March 2004, the FCC did just that, declaring, “While prior Commission and staff action have indicated that isolated or fleeting broadcasts of the “F-Word” such as that here are not indecent or would not be acted upon, consistent with our decision today we conclude that any such interpretation is no longer good law.” In the Matter of Complaints Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing of the “Golden Globe Awards” Program, 19 F.C.C.R. 4975 (2004).
A coalition of broadcasters filed petitions asking the FCC to reconsider, but while those petitions languished at the FCC for two years, the agency went back and applied the “new law” to all those old cases, finding that the utterances of Cher and Nicole Richie, and the language used on “NYPD Blue” were actionable after all. In the Matter of Complaints Regarding Various Television Broadcasts Between February 2, 2002 and March 8, 2005, 21 F.C.C.R. 2664 (2006).
Fox, et al., turned to the Second Circuit for review, resulting in the Court’s June 2007 decision throwing out the FCC’s new fleeting expletive policy. According to the Second Circuit, the FCC had failed to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.” Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, 489 F.3d 444 (2nd Cir. 2007). Just this week, the Commission announced it would seek Supreme Court review of the decision.
Although the petitioners raised constitutional challenges to the FCC’s definition of indecency, the Second Circuit declined to reach those, remanding the case back to the FCC on procedural grounds. The indecency definition, first articulated in 1975 when the FCC found George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” monologue indecent, is: language or acts that describe or depict sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. In subsequent rulings, the FCC limited its jurisdiction over indecency to the hours of 6 am to 10 pm.
The Supreme Court narrowly upheld the FCCs definition in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, et al., 438 U.S. 726 (1978), the case that came out of the Carlin monologue. Now, the Court will have a chance to review that decision and the definition of indecency in light of 35 years of massive changes in the television industry, the creeping naughtiness of mainstream communication and entertainment and the changing bedtime hours of children.
The case may prove to be irresistible to the high court. On the one side is the FCC and family groups who understandably wonder why, in this age of live-television delay technology, broadcasters can’t do a better job of keeping bad words and bare breasts off of daytime TV. On the other side are first amendment defenders who have long chafed at FCC’s role in determining television content. They believe the agency’s erratic crackdowns on indecency have chilled free speech and artistic freedom. They point to the very real example of Ken Burns’s documentary, “The War.” The original version contained four profanities (in a 14 ½ hour documentary). Concerned about the possibly of fines from the FCC, local PBS stations balked at airing the program, forcing the producers to issue two versions: one with soldiers talking like soldiers talk, and the other with all the bad words bleeped.
If the Supreme Court does accept cert, the most difficult issue they will have to face is to explain what benefit there is to having a government agency regulate broadcast speech in an age when broadcast is an ever-diminishing part of the mass media landscape. Stay tuned.
Kathleen Conkey and Deborah Principe-Lake, Esq. will be giving a CLE presentation on indecency law and television standards & practices in November, sponsored by the New York State Bar Association. Check this blog in coming weeks for more information on the CLE.
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