FCC Settles Censorship Claims with ClearChannel

The Importance of writes "Earlier this week Slashdot debated whether the FCC should be abolished. One of the reasons many think the FCC should go away is because of censorship. Well, yesterday, the FCC settled all existing censorship investigations with Clear Channel for $1.75M and a promise to be better in the future, such as by firing DJs for their first offense. Clear Channel also plead guilty to violating indecency standards, but no one is saying what, exactly they said that was wrong. On the other hand, the FCC seems to have forgotten that they decided a couple of months ago to regulate profanity in addition to indecency. In other FCC news, they've posted the internet section of the FCC History Project."

Comments

thats nice, but

[Spanyrd]

what about the fact that they own the entire market in some areas?

Re:thats nice, but

[rusty0101]

Unless they own over half of the "media" in the area, including TV, Cable, and local Print media, the FCC does not consider them to have a fraction to be concerned about.

This is one of the reasons US West (before merger with Qwest) had to drop interest in some of the Cable companies they had purchased when they had partner ownership with both Time Warner, and Disney. As a result some of the markets they were in included all of the media outlets.

-Rusty

Clean up the Air on the Tech Side, Too

[nyekulturniy]

I'm in favor of maintaining regulatory standards over programming. However, when is the FCC going to get its act together and clean up the technical mess on the medium-wave band?

FedSpeak 101

[Giant Ape Skeleton]

It's interesting that the FCC distinguishes between obscenity and mere profanity.

Kind of gives you insight into the bureaucratic mindset in general, especially as applied to subjective matters like decency....

Re:FedSpeak 101

[garcia]

As I have said before, I find it far more interesting that the FCC has anything to say about any of this anyway. Who the hell decided that because they "oversee" the frequencies that they get to decide for the rest of the country what is "right" and what is "wrong"?

Sorry but it isn't up to government bodies to decide what's best for us. We're quite capable of doing that ourselves.

Re:FedSpeak 101

[jandrese]

You might want to read up on "The Tragedy of the Commons". Hint: The Radio spectrum is like a public park.

I'm not particularly thrilled at how the FCC is also the decency police. I think they should stop at regulating how much power you're allowed to emit at various frequncies and other such related tasks. I don't even mind them testing people to insure they know how to not mess up the spectrum before they hand out licenses. Heck, I'm even mostly OK with them specifying that certain radio bands are not for commercial use. I just don't like them getting all messed up with trying to determine if something is "decent" or not. That should be decided by local authorities (perhaps even the broadcaster himself). If people have a problem they should talk to the broadcaster, not the FCC.

Re:FedSpeak 101

[monkeydo]

You have a tragedy of the commons problem with content as well. The radio spectrum is a scarce public resource and one of the requirements for licensees is that they provide programing in the public interest and they abide by community standards.

Howard

[BlindSpy]

I may be bias because I get my info from howard stern but I think the FCC is completely off base. If you listened to howard stern this morning, they had a very good example of a WMMS employee that committed a federal offence and the only person that had to pay in any way was the guy that directly committed the offence. WMMS's licenes should have been revoked or at least suspended by their own rules. Now with howard stern, the FCC does not even have a specific offence that he is being charged for yet Clear Channel is being fined for over a million dollars? It just doesnt make sense.

could anybody explain...

[User 956]

Could someone explain to me why Howard Stern can say something, and it's "indecent", but if Oprah uses the same language, in the same setting, in the same way, it's magically *not* indecent?

...yeah, that's what I thought. Somehow the current administration seems to have forgotten about "equal protection under the law". Maybe it was that big Constitution-burning party they had right after stealing office.

Does the FCC understand the FCC

[Da_Slayer]

Honestly I think the FCC has no idea what they are doing. Censor certain things, and not others. Go after profanity but not sexual theme speech. Allow violence and sex on TV but only at certain times and only certain things allowed.

Just trying to follow what they say and then do and not do is a headache all in itself. I believe the FCC needs a serious revision. A re-write from source if you will. Get rid of everything they have now and start over with a new rule book that is designed with current idealogy and forsight when dealing with newer techonologies.

It will be painful for them but better for us overall the sooner this happens. Furthermore it would be nice to read a concise brief on the regulations of what you can or cannot do in a medium.

Kissing butt in Texas

[RobertB-DC]

Here in Dallas, we've lost our last Hard Rock station, Clear Channel's 97.1 The Eagle. They turned it into Sunny 97.1, playing a fully automated mix of 70s and 80s. My 13-year-old daughter and all her friends were devastated, but I told her it's really pretty simple.

It's George W's fault.

Clear Channel vice-head-honcho Tom Hicks made Dubya a rich man indeed when he bought the Texas Rangers from Bush's ownership group. That freed up Bush to run for Governor, and the rest, as they say, is history (though he was a decent governor, as they go). Short story: Hicks and Bush are buds.

Now, you have Janet Jackson's Right Breast suddenly stirring up the bible-thumpers (the ones that give us Christians a bad image). Fired up, they went after an easy target -- the shock jocks that Clear Channel and others put on the air to cover up the fact that their corporate music sucks.

Bush calls Hicks with a proposal: act like they're sorry, pay a little fine, shut down some jocks and stations, so that the bible thumpers will feel like they've won. Bush gets his base energized, and Hicks gets buddy Bush re-elected.

And for the icing on the cake, Clear Channel turns off the last rock station in conservative Dallas.

They'd been letting it rot in the ratings for years (details here), so they had an excuse. So maybe my tinfoil hat is on too tight. But if they'd supported the music, KEGL would have *had* ratings... and top 15 in the Dallas market still isn't anything to sneeze at.

Bottom line: Republican politics killed Rock in Dallas. The Eagle joins Q102 and The Zoo in radio oblivion.

Howard Stern

[ogewo]

From howardstern.com:

"Howard attacked Clear Channel for paying the $1.7 million fine to the government over his show and other's. Howard wants to know why they are paying the government but not paying him and honoring his contract. He says that Clear Channel didn't even fight the fines, they just kowtow to the Bush Administration to stay on their good side. And last year, Clear Channel was defending that same show to the FCC. Only after Howard started bashing Bush did Clear Channel suspend him for those shows, before any fines even came down. It's really scary how a major company like Clear Channel just seemingly does whatever the government asks. And how come the FCC hasn't fined Oprah yet over the same things Howard got fined for? Howard said that Clear Channel is full of sickening cowards."

Four paragraphs from the bottom

Cyclist? Too bad...

[cornice]

Too bad the FCC can't do anything about Clearchannel DJs inciting violence against cyclists.

Re:Shakedown

[Zareste]

Interesting. FCC is definitely cashing in on their new 'we control what you say' regulations. Impressive. Nobody's buying their 'think of the children' act anymore but it really doesn't matter anymore, does it? Control what everyone's aloud to say and hear and make a load of money off it? I want that job.

Re:Hmm..

[glitch23]

At least I can appeal to people's better judgement by saying that ClearChannel is anti-free market, but try talking reason to the crazy religious people who think a nipple is evil.

No one said it was evil. It just doesn't belong in a Super Bowl halftime show when everyone knows kids will be watching it. There are other channels where that type of content belongs..... *sarcasm*like on FX or SpikeTV or something *end sarcasm*.

Religion is simply not rational, its emotional. No offense, but thats a fact. If it was rational it could be proven and there would be no need for faith.

You mean like how some scientific and mathematical theories are so rational but they can't be proven and that's why they are called theories but we still believe they are right until they can be proven wrong? I know some people swear by evolution but, and stop me if I'm wrong, it's still just a theory.

You just consider any moral movement radical or fanatical when it doesn't agree with your own set of morals (if you even have any, I'd be surprised if you did or you wouldn't be making this an issue). Just because someone stands up for something they believe in which doesn't agree with you it doesn't mean they are a fanatic or a radical or irrational. They don't ever call you those things when you fight for something that you believe in. For you it's just an easy way to bash religion.

We really need to get remove censorship powers from the FCC and let the network censors take care of the job. I mean, we have TV ratings now and everything.

The network censors are failing at their job. The TV ratings give them a huge excuse to put anything on tv that they want so long as they warn viewers about what the content will contain. It gives them a cop out. Just like giving condoms to kids gives them an excuse to have sex. Instead of saying they shouldn't have sex we just tell them if they are going to do it make sure they are protected. That isn't how you lower teen pregnancy by condoning it but keeping them safe.

Giving the network censors free rein over what they include in their content and then letting them rate it themselves is like giving the fox the key to the hen house. And in case you haven't noticed, there are movies nowadays that are PG-13 that have the 'f' word in them. We didn't used to have that but the criteria for the ratings system for movies has been lowered and I imagine the TV ratings will also run into the same problem so pretty soon tv shows that are rated suitable for teenagers with no partial nudity will soon include partial nudity but be given the same rating because standards are lowered(by people like you saying everything is okay). At that point the ratings are useless and the networks can still keep putting in whatever content they want so long as they rate it.