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FCC to Require Broadcasters to Keep Tapes of Shows
The Importance of writes "Under current FCC rules, in order to make an indecency complaint about a broadcast you have to provide "a significant excerpt from the program or a full or partial tape or transcript of the program." However, broadcasters aren't required to keep a tape of their broadcasts so, rarely, an indecency complaint gets dismissed for lack of evidence. But that is going to change. The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [PDF] [TXT] that will require broadcasters to maintain recordings of their broadcasts for 60-90 days. The FCC is also considering reducing what you must claim in order to enter a complaint, thus opening the floodgates for indecency complaints by groups like the Parents Television Council, which is already keeping the FCC censors busy. Doesn't the government have better things to do?"
At least in the UK, you are required to keep tapes recorded at the broadcast feed - ie. right where it hits your link - for three months or so.
Doesn't the government have better things to do?
Uh, no.
Actually, between large numbers parents who vote (and organize themselves into pressure groups), and the large numbers of twentysomethings who don't vote, and teenagers who *can't* vote, who do you think makes a more effective pressure group? Who do you think the guv'mint will try to pander to?
Off topic: I've been reading this and been wondering about how much of this "won't someone think of the children" crap would still exist if legal age for voting was 14 or 15.
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No, broadcasting something doesn't put it in the public domain. That's actually one reason cited for requiring the broadcasters to keep copies, becasue it's technically illegal for viewer/listeners to do so (aside from time-shifting).
Dad can't do that, by law.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
and when you're (retroactively!) guilty?
I'd be very surprised if the FCC had the power to implement retroactive law. Under Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, no ex post facto law may be passed.
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A corporation doesn't have a "self" - it's not a person, so it has only a few attributes created by people. So it has no "right" to freedom from self incrimination, guaranteed to people in the Constitution's 5th Amendment. These records will be useful in documenting a media corporation's actions, so real people can have a chance getting remedies to damaging actions.
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make install -not war
I'd be very surprised if the FCC had the power to implement retroactive law.
The constitution doesn't really matter anymore. The FCC can already impose fines and revoke licenses without trial.
The person accusing you has to prove you did it, either beyond a reasonable doubt or with the preponderance(?) of the evidence. Since you are presumed innocent, you really have to do nothing.
If you have done nothing wrong, why not keep a record of what you have done? You only destroy evidence when you are guilty, right?
I think that this line of argument for forced recording of material is just like the old argument about hiding stuff: it is an attempt to impose more restrictions on innocent people.
I violently agree. I am a bc engineer, mostly retired.
Makeing us, the small market window on your home town here in the markets rated as 100+, responsible for what the networks feed us in the form of making us keep an aircheck tape of a 24/7/365 operation, at $20 an hour for the tape and another $10/hour or more for machine maintainance, will gain no real benefits to society at large, and will reduce our already too narrow operating margin by a considerable percentage. Its an expense smaller market stations cannot afford as it doesn't scale to the market size, but rather is a fixed expense regardless of the market ranking of the station.
For locally produced stuff, like our 5 times daily newscasts & morning cut-ins, yes, we do tape those, but asking us to save every tape for 60-90 days will multiply our tape costs by however many weeks that would be since like most, that tape has served its "review our own perfomance" duty at the end of the week, so tuesdays tape for the 12:00 noon cast is then re-written the next tuesday at 12.
These aren't $2.00 walmart vhs tapes folks.
From another viewpoint, we are simply incapable of responding in real time to bleep out a embargoed word when carrying what the networks feed us, or of recognizing and setting up an overlay fuzzball in real time of such goings on as the "wardrobe malfunction" during the superbowl. Our operators were as wide-eyed as the rest of the world at that instance.
Such regulatory actions rightfully should be directed to the source of the program, and not the 1700 something broadcast tv stations under the commissions purview.
As it is, we spend around 60 man hours a week scanning the syndicated and one time stuff that comes in on tape before we air it, and often wind up editing out a word or 3, but since we cannot do that to the syndi's tape, its their copyrighted property, that means we have to make yet another dub on our own tape.
This is an ill-conceived idea, really.
Cheers, Gene
Hmm... We've done this in Canada for years. The CRTC regs required us to have logger machines recording everything the station outputs (both TV and Radio stations). We used to keep 30 days of log-tapes, but they may have increased the minimum requirement since I was last working in a station.
We always just used cheap VHS tapes on EP mode on disposable-grade VCRs - the tapes don't have to be anywhere near broadcast quality, they're just a record incase there are issues with the broadcast and a viewer complained (to my knowledge, it never happened at the station I was at). We'd just run two machines to make sure there was an overlap, then change tapes every 6 hours.
Radio stations typically just use a big reel-to-reel tape on extreme-slow speed. I think they could get an entire day on one tape.
They may accept digital recordings now (low labour and probably better quality), but the machines would have to be very reliable (probably a 2nd live redundant system as a backup).
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
American families are being poisoned by the extremely offensive content in this show. Such TV programming is seriously harming America's children and grandchildren, and SPONSORS LIKE YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT WITH YOUR ADVERTISING BUDGET!
I applaud Carfax, Orbitz, Castrol, Progressive Insurance, Capital One, Cingular Wireless, Gateway Computers, Schering-Plough, Chattem, Orange Glo and Alcon Laboratories -- early sponsors during "Nip/Tuck's" first season -- for their decisions to stop paying for commercials on the show. By showing true corporate responsibility, these sponsors have earned the thanks of every parent and grandparent in America.
But by making the opposite decision and striking a deal with "Nip/Tuck" to bankroll its season premiere, XM SATELLITE RADIO HAS DISPLAYED CORPORATE IRRESPONSIBILITY.
The creator of "Nip/Tuck" has declared that it is his aim to remove every barrier to depiciton of explicit sex on TV. By paying for "Nip/Tuck," you are supporting him in this aim.
Therefore, I am hereby joining with the Parents Television Council in calling upon you to stop paying for the shameful gross-out content of "Nip/Tuck."
I suggest that you read the summary of "Nip/Tuck's" content which the Parents Television Council has compiled (see below), and then decide whether this is the image you want American consumers -- your potential customers -- to have of your company.
With my support, if XM SATELLITE RADIO persists in its financial backing of "Nip/Tuck," the Parents Television Council will do everything possible to ensure that your potential customers become aware of the "Nip/Tuck" content that your company's commericals are paying for.
Here is a summary of the first-season content on "Nip/Tuck."
[WARNING: The following content summary during "Nip/Tuck's" first season is explicit and will be EXTREMELY offensive to many. Bear in mind that it appeared on basic-cable television where it was available to millions of children.]
GRAPHIC SELF-CIRCUMCISION SCENE: Dr. McNamara's son, Matt, performs a circumcision on himself at home. Since his girlfriend is turned off by his extra foreskin, Matt decides to go to a website and learn how to perform the operation on himself. Matt removes his pants. We see Matt's upper body. We hear the instructions going on in his head: "For the first cut, grip the foreskin and pull it out. Cut in circular motion in a thin quarter inch strip." We see him looking down as he cuts at the foreskin of his penis. We see him shudder, then he looks at his hand, which is covered in blood. He faints. ... Drs. McNamara and Troy talk about a patient who wants to have sex with the latter in return for not reporting a surgical error; Troy says, "Are you actually telling me to stick my dick in the Crypt Keeper to make your mistake go away?" ...Words like asshole, shit, tit, and dick are commonplace...
FOUL LANGUAGE: In describing a liposuction he did on a patient's chin, Dr. Troy says: "I sliced that bitch's waddle off 15 months ago."
In a recent episode, Kimber says: "I'm the one with candle wax burns on her ass. I'm the one standing out on the street corner with her tits hanging out. I bust my butt to fulfill every sexual desire you have. I want a little goddamn appreciation."
Other examples of foul language:
Troy: "20 milligrams of Vicodin and a blowjob will clear that right up."
Troy: "You know what they say, for every beautiful woman there is a guy who is tired of screwing her."
Troy: "You are the hottest piece of ass in this place. And you're mine. But if I am going to do this one woman thing, I can't be with just one woman."
Lexy: "I read this thing in People about 12 year-olds giving blow jobs to
I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!
Could you not have a profanity delay and drop to white noise/fault card in this kind of case.
That might be do-able if it weren't for the fact that most of the operators have other duties in between station breaks that can take them more than 10 seconds away from the button, possibly even in the back production bay looking up a commercial that the playback soft says is on the missing list in the hard drive queue. Some stations are so automated that a board op isn't required, the local break is actually triggered by signals from the network.
There are also legal enjoinders against this sort of thing in our network contracts, such conditions brought on by the popularity of the infamous 'time machine'. Which was in fact a heck of a good idea, but the networks got all bent when they found we were making room for another 30 to 60 seconds of commercial time in a 1 hour program by removing no motion frames and pregnant pauses from the program stream. We are monitored by external entities, and the networks get a summary the next day of delayed or missed commercials. So now they must be carried in real time per contract else we wouldn't be that nets affiliate for very long.
Cheers, Gene