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Attempt to Apply Decency Standards to Cable/Satellite Television
bigtallmofo writes "Reuters is reporting that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (Senator from Alaska) is pushing for decency standards to apply to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio. You may recall Senator Stevens for voting against a measure to criticize the FCC in 2003 for loosening its broadcast ownership restrictions. Maybe he thinks profanity provides an unfair advantage to his broadcast-company constituents?" We touched on this last year, in the attempt to apply decency standards to satellite radio.
I remember listening to some sort of interview with the head of the FCC (Powell), months ago. He remarked that kids didn't know the difference between a pay channel and a broadcast channel. So he felt the FCC should be regulating any sort of medium that kids might listen/view, no matter where it came from.
Don't like it? Get involved - Write to the US Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Senator Ted Stevens.
And the Co-Chairman Senator Daniel K. Inouye. It's cool to complain on websites, but if even a fraction of us actually contacted our representatives in congress, maybe things might change.
- There must be decency.
- There must be some person(s) given the task to decide what is decent and what isn't.
- Those given that task will be government officials/bureaucrats.
- Whatever those persons deem not decent should not be shown on CATV or played on satellite radio.
- The not decent material will not be shown/played based on the decisions of the government officials.
How is that not censorship?everything in moderation
I laugh out loud everytime I listen to the show, unlike Howard Stern, etc. If you don't have XM, try to find an mp3 on usenet.
Do something about it. If every Slashdot member calls the Senator, believe me, they will get the message.
His webpage is here: http://stevens.senate.gov/ and his phone number is (202) 224-3004.
Do it now. Kill this crap in the bud. You only earn the right to rant and rave if you pick up the phone, send an email, or write a letter. If not, then keep quiet (no more whining to Slashdot), since that's what they want you to do.
Removing the Fairness Doctrine made it possible for stations to promote political causes by allowing the stations to deny time to competing opinions.
I'm against regulating pay television services, but doesn't it make sense that both sides of a issue should be presented on stations that have been granted the right to broadcast using public airwaves?
It's dishonest to claim that a law does the exact opposite or what it really does.
Yes, but this has already been tried and ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Basically, the court said that subscription services cannot be held to the standards of broadcast TV and radio because they're subscription services.
Perhaps someone can provide the relevant case. I believe it was Alliance for Community Media v. FCC.
But the V-chip argument may well hold some water. The Supreme Court has held that any regulation of speech has to employ the least restrictive means, and it can be argued that the V-chip is that means. It hasn't been put to the test as far as broadcast TV goes, but if this bill ever passes, then it may well be used here.
The last time the FCC tried to do this, they were struck down by the SCotUS who agreed with a lower court which ruled that the FCC can't censor cable broadcasts the way they wanted to. This is seperate from the airwaves since cable TV isn't a public right like access to the EM spectrum. This ruling pretty much said that cable operators can do whatever they want with regards to content since the customer always has the option of not subscribing to the cable network. Most channels still self-censor, but they are under no legal requirement to do so. In fact, MTV sometimes airs uncensored videos at odd hours of the night and there is nothing the right wing can do about it but complain to the advertisers.
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I also believe that cable TV will pretty much die out once we have enough bandwith that the majority of people can legally order shows in real time over their Internet connection. It's just going to take a while for the big dinosaurs to realize that they have to adapt or die.
BTW, the original case of US v. Playboy: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2000/98
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I think it stems from the back that ABC doesn't show those little commericals anymore, like how a Bill goes to Captial Hill to become a law.
Even if you were kidding, I think there is a lot of truth to this.
I haven't really watched Saturday morning TV for quite a while now, but is there anything even remotely comparable to Schoolhouse Rock being shown these days?
I mean that was real education slipped right past me as cartoons. It was a sneaky trick, but at least I know what conjunctions and interjections are as well as how a bill becomes a law.
Here's an ex-commisioner's take on the whole FCC censorship issue.
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He implies that it is a political issue and control of media issue, not a morality issue as such.
http://www.saveradionow.org/nicholasjohnshon.ht
The guy is no kook. Read it and try to understand.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
It's generally accepted that a country controls only its airspace, which ends with the atmosphere, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120km altitude (note the "air" in the name). Geosynchronous satellites (like the ones that broadcast satellite TV) sit at about 38500km altitude, in outer space, far beyond the reaches of national sovreignty. They are definitely not in anyone's airspace.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I was watching a documentary lastnight all about the current censorship laws trying to be passed in the US at the moment.
The fashion label 'FCUK' French Connection United Kingdom has great sales globally but can't penetrate the US market because their products were all pulled from US stores because the christian right were complaining that the label was an offensive word. Its not even spelt that way. How far will this go people?
A great quote from the show was from an ex shock jock in florida who was pulled off the the air due to concerns by his radio station of getting fined by the FCC.
I can't say fuck on the radio but I can own a gun that can kill over 100 people.
While holding his military machine gun (Think it was an M16)
This docco also discussed a law which was attempting to be passed in one of your southern states for people who reveal their underwear above their jeans to be put in jail for up to 150 days.
You guys live in a very morally bizzare country.
Actually, there's no legal limit on commercials in the US except for Children's programming. They had dropped that limit too, but it got reintroduced in the Children's Television Act of 1990.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
what the hell has happened to the Republican party? I remember a time when they used to argue against frivolous regulation.
no, I just found the thought of you saying it and not knowing where it came from funny. I'm actually hindu, which is where that idea originated(as world religions of Eur-asia go).
I also found it humorous that a Buddhist tennant was used as part of an argument by someone defending christianity because most people in general don't know much about other religions, much less use them in their arguments.
but just to tell you, the tennant in buudhism is about being able to be exposed to anything(even those nekkid women) and still remain in complete control and not have those thoughts form. That is the self control they shoot for.