Congress and the FCC are talking about making performers pay fines too.

Congress and the FCC are talking about making performers pay fines too.
By DIANE DE LA PAZ
TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
A new ideological Cold War is developing, the stakes being the eyes and ears, not the hearts and minds, of the media consumer.
This new, chillier climate pits federal regulators against television and radio broadcasters in a war of words and images -- specifically what can and cannot be said and shown on the air.
Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl may have garnered the biggest exposure, but the cries of indecency had been growing louder even before. In the months since, calls to clean up the airwaves have been more persistent.
Among the biggest casualties have been shock-jock superstar Howard Stern and Clear Channel Communications, one of the nation's biggest media companies.
Clear Channel last month was penalized for 18 "individual utterances" that the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees radio and television, deemed obscene. Each of the 18 violations brought a $27,500 fine, for a total of $495,000.
Clear Channel, not Stern, is liable for that money, as well as for a record $755,000 fine for sexually explicit material on the "Bubba the Love Sponge" show that originated in Florida.
Both Bubba (a k a Todd Clem) and Stern were dumped by Clear Channel, but that doesn't mean the FCC isn't looking to levy more -- and higher -- fines.
Pending legislation
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill to raise penalties for indecent broadcasts to $275,000 for each violation.
So if a broadcasting company allowed six obscene remarks to air, it could end up forking over $1.65 million. In addition, the FCC and Congress have talked about extending fines to performers and personalities.
Though the House overwhelmingly supported the increase, the U.S. Senate has yet to vote it into law. That body drafted its own bill proposing fines of up to $500,000 per violation. But the proposal has stalled in the Senate, and Congress has fewer than 60 days left before it adjourns for the year.
Senators have discussed a stack of amendments to the indecency bill.
Those range from having the FCC hold hearings on whether to revoke a broadcaster's license after three indecency offenses, to studying whether the V-chip in new TV sets sufficiently protects children from violent content.
With so many modifications to debate, observers say it's unlikely the Senate will take a final vote on the indecency proposals before adjournment.
But Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist has vowed to bring the bill to the floor. And groups such as the Parents Television Council are expected to push for its reintroduction next year if the bill doesn't become law during this session.
The federal crackdown comes after a decade of relaxed enforcement. The 1990s saw the rise of cable television, which has more lax standards for language and content.
Here was the trend
The networks, too, continued to push the decency envelope. What once was considered highly risque -- Dennis Franz flashing his bare buttocks on "NYPD Blue"-- had become almost commonplace in prime time by 2000, as the so-called "family hour" was seemingly cast aside.
What it took, analysts say, was one shocking event to get lawmakers' attention and address what critics say is a steady erosion of standards. And that event wasn't Jackson's breast-baring. Rather, says Eric Nuzum, a Web commentator (www.ericnuzum.com) and author of "Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America," Bono was the catalyst.
The U2 vocalist used the f-word to modify "brilliant" while accepting an award at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards on NBC. "That was the catalyst for this," Nuzum said.
Yet complaints will continue to flow into the FCC's mailbox and Web site (www.fcc.gov), said Fritz Messere, who has worked for the FCC and authored "Broadcasting, Cable, the Internet and Beyond."
Radio stations, gunning for more listeners, have been in a race to prove who's more outrageous. The FCC received record numbers of complaints in the first four months of 2004, and "there are other cases pending where the DJ wasn't indecent, but the callers were," Messere said.
How things are done
In the "Bubba the Love Sponge" case, a Florida man, Douglas Vanderlaan, was listening to a rock station with his teenage son in the summer of 2001, when Bubba, the host, came on.
Offended by the content of an interview with a woman who ran a porn Web site, Vanderlaan called the radio station and got nowhere; later he contacted the FCC. He was then told he'd have to send the commission tapes of the broadcasts in question.
So Vanderlaan recorded Bubba daily, until April 2002, when he presented his archive to the FCC. It took 19 more months before the agency proposed to fine Bubba's boss, Clear Channel. Bubba (Clem) lost his job this spring.
No one who hears indecent material on the radio or sees it on TV can expect the FCC to pounce on its own. It's up to the listener or viewer to complain.
And though Congress can raise the ceiling on fines, the FCC won't levy them until long after a complaint is filed. A study by the Center for Public Integrity reported that the average amount of time between a broadcast and an FCC fine is 523 days.
Programmers worried about their futures when they gathered in Las Vegas last month. At the National Association of Broadcasters' annual convention, they heard FCC chairman Michael Powell talk of expanding his purview into cable channels such as HBO, where the commission could scrutinize "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under."
Such threats of a wider net make media types like Messere uncomfortable. At this point in history, it's only words and "obscene actions, like frontal nudity," that are censured, he said.
American broadcasters are forbidden to air references to sexual and excretory functions between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
"The FCC cannot interfere with a story line. It can decry it, but it can't do anything about it," which is why fines have yet to be levied on violent TV dramas or steamy soap opera plots.
Programmers are still watching their mouths, added Messere, about which words might cause a nasty fine. Time was, George Carlin's list of "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" sufficed.
But NAB conventioneers worried audibly about mysterious additions. "I hear there are eight words now," Messere half-joked. "And we don't know what the eighth word is."