The FCC – Common Sense Needs to Rule the Debate and New Regulations

By Kevin Fobbs and Lisa Sarrach

The continuing debate over the Super Bowl debacle, Howard Stern, and the FCC’s role and responsibilities to monitor indecency on the public airwaves is missing some key points.

The FCC, in cracking down on television and radio programming, should set very clear guidelines that they expect programmers to abide by or be subject to heavy fines. It appears to us that the commissioners are using arbitrary standards in the shows and personalities they are targeting. A strict guideline as to what is or is not allowed on our public airwaves is necessary to force proper compliance.

That being said, it’s a good thing that attention is finally being paid to the ever increasing amount of smut under the guise of being provocative that is pervading the airwaves and making it virtually impossible for parents to easily monitor what their children can and cannot watch or listen to.

As we’ve written before on this website, the lines have become so blurred and cross promotion so prevalent among the mass media owners, parents are at a loss to protect their children. And make no mistake; it is up to the parents to monitor their children’s behavior, program choices, etc. But it has to be a fair fight with firm guidelines and expectations that parents can count on to assess what their kids watch.

Examples that have flummoxed parents include commercials for “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” being shown during an airing of a family movie on NBC. There’s just no excuse for that. Parents should be able to feel safe that when sitting down with their children to watch “The Wizard of Oz,” for example, that they aren’t exposed to material that requires an explanation to the kiddies that parents aren’t ready to make.

As much as we are disgusted by much of the material that passes as entertainment these days, and the continuous “pushing of the envelope” that causes the FCC’s phones and faxes to go into overdrive, we repeat that the ultimate responsibility for monitoring belong to the parents. But at the same time, a much more clear set of rules, guidelines, and expectations will make their jobs a lot easier as well as for media owners to enforce with their talent.

An equally troubling trend is going to be much more difficult to correct. Cable and satellite. The FCC does not currently monitor cable and satellite owners and therefore, abuses are happening all over the place. Here’s an example: While channel surfing the other evening, we came across “The League of Their Own” on Turner Classic Movies at 10:00 pm. Harmless, right? Well, imagine our surprise to discover that the film was being shown unedited, with all the salty language intact. So what’s the problem? The problem is that TCM is a basic movie channel, programming you receive with your basic cable package. It’s not Showtime or HBO, the home for adult programming that requires an additional paid subscription to receive.

The days of the rooftop antenna are gone. Americans overwhelmingly use cable and satellite as their antenna to receive their signal. It’s supposed to be easy to keep The Sopranos, Sex in the City, and other adult programming out of your home, if you desire, you just don’t get the “pay” channels. But you really don’t have a choice with the basic channels, and while you can block MTV, for instance, through your cable box, you shouldn’t have to expect to block out a movie channel known for showing classic movies from the 40’s on up. That’s just one example of how that envelope is being pushed sneakily, without warning.

It’s a mystery to us why some of these cable and satellite companies seem to want to invite investigations or changes in the law that would allow monitoring of their programming. It really wouldn’t be necessary if they could self-monitor as they have in the past, and limit their provocative programming to their pay channels, where adults are in control of whether or not to buy the signal. But by sneaking around when they don’t think anyone is watching and running unedited films on today’s version of the rabbit ear, they invite closer scrutiny. This is very disconcerting, but unfortunately also typical of the industry and their own lack of self-control, which has been evidenced so frequently of late. Cable and satellite providers will now find themselves the target for parental ire, and possible legislation to monitor their programming.

Common sense has to make a return to the public discourse over this issue. The FCC needs to set clear, firm, and sensible guidelines for radio and television programmers that are not arbitrary. They should increase their fines once those guidelines are in place and levy them across the board equally and fairly to the violators.

As to cable and satellite providers, if they don’t self-correct where they are going wrong, the time may well have come to pass legislation to give the FCC oversight into their abuses. Foul language and racy, over the top, sexual images do not belong on basic channels that are now as ubiquitous as the three major networks used to be.

We urge an initiative that makes it easier on parents and families to monitor their media choices and common sense legislation that protects, does not infringe on our 1^st amendment rights, and provides overwhelming clarity for programmers and viewers alike.