Rush is right! The government's stepped up bid to regulate
broadcast television content is indeed frightening. Limbaugh
made his comments during one of his regular radio broadcasts
last year. Those remarks were in response to the FCC's crackdown
on broadcast indecency and Congress' threats to hand out much
larger fines to broadcasters for such violations, in the wake of
Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl
halftime show last February. Limbaugh is the not only media
personality alarmed by this intensified government scrutiny of
television content. At the beginning of his news program on CNN
during that same time frame, Aaron Brown said he thought the
only thing worse than Jackson's Super Bowl debacle is the fact
that the government is now getting involved in trying to prevent
similar incidents in the future. Amen, Aaron! Television, like
any other business in a capitalistic society like ours, is and
should be governed by the marketplace and the laws of supply and
demand. I would love to see more family-friendly television
programming. However, if there were truly a great demand for it,
there would naturally be a lot more of it in existence (as well
as a lot less of the offensive stuff). The folks who are pushing
the hardest for greater government intervention to make TV more
family-friendly will assert that they are in the majority of
viewers and listeners in the U.S. However, the facts belie this
assertion. Of the seven broadcast networks, PAX, widely
recognized as the most family-friendly, is last in the ratings.
It's not just last, it is dead last! PAX gets about one-fourth
of the audience of the sixth place network! Even in places that
don't have a local PAX affiliate, it is usually available as a
cable channel. However, it's not even among the 30 top-rated
cable channels. On the other hand, some of the TV shows and
cable networks with the most controversial material get the
highest ratings. Go figure. In reality, those who are clamoring
the loudest for TV to "clean up its act" know they are in the
minority. Instead of tuning their TVs to PAX or one of the other
tamer channels (as I do) or even turning their TVs completely
off, they go running to the government to force their tastes on
everyone else. Oddly enough, most of these people consider
themselves conservatives. Funny, I thought conservatives
disdained government intervention in favor of allowing the
marketplace to take its course. Where did I ever get such a
silly idea? What these people seemingly don't realize is that
their efforts could very well backfire on them and all the rest
of us. Broadcasters have generally submitted to the concepts of
the V-chip and content ratings to help parents regulate their
children’s TV viewing in their homes. After all, isn't that what
all of this hoopla is about? They have also meekly accepted
reasonable fines from time to time for indecent broadcasts.
However, the vocal minority is now demanding that the FCC and
Congress play hardball, i.e., impose very large and numerous
fines as well as revoking the licenses of stations found guilty
of indecent broadcasts. In response to this demand, there are
now bills circulating in both houses of Congress that would
increase fines to the range of $250,000 to $3 million per
violation along with threatening license revocation for habitual
offenders. Many people forget that the FCC and Congress are not
the final arbiters of these matters. The courts are. In the
past, the courts have vigorously defended the First Amendment
and I believe they will continue this trend. By playing
hardball, the FCC and Congress will leave broadcasters with no
other option but to take them to court. Even though the courts
have, in the past, upheld the FCC's reasonable jurisdiction over
broadcast TV, things could change if the government's newly
attempted heavy-handed penalties are challenged. Long ago, the
courts stripped away the government's "right" to regulate
indecency on cable and satellite channels. If the government
decides it really wants to play hardball with broadcasters, it
could ultimately lose any jurisdiction over broadcast content as
well. But let's suppose the government's more restrictive
regulations are upheld by the courts. That's definitely a
possibility. However, because of the greatly increase fines and
the possibility of license revocation, the courts will likely
force the FCC to be more specific and draw up more detailed
indecency guidelines. They are currently vague, to say the
least. I’ll use the following illustration to demonstrate how
vague the FCC’s current guidelines really are. Let’s suppose
that none of the roads or highways we all drive on everyday had
posted speed limits. Instead, let’s suppose they just had signs
warning us not to drive too fast. Then let’s suppose that the
police were allowed to subjectively write tickets whenever they
thought someone was driving too fast, but would never actually
define what they thought “too fast” really was. That’s similar
to how the FCC operates. It doesn’t provide any specific
guidelines and only investigates a claim of indecency when
someone files a complaint. It never explicitly states what a
broadcaster can and cannot do. Now, going back to our speeding
analogy, let’s suppose that we (along with the courts) tolerated
this kind of speed enforcement because the fines were relatively
small and no one’s license was ever revoked. However, what do
you think would happen if the governing authority decided to
greatly increase the fines for speeding and allow the
possibility of license revocations for such violations, without
giving us specific speed limits? We would not stand still for
such a thing and neither would the courts. Posted speed limits
would be mandated. With the FCC forced to write more specific
rules governing indecency, it could find itself in a very
precarious position. If, for example, the FCC strictly forbids
specific words from being used and/or specific body parts from
being shown on broadcast TV, it will invite another court battle
that it will probably lose. However, if it explicitly lists
situations in which certain words can be used and/or certain
body parts can be shown, broadcasters will begin to find
loopholes in these rules and exploit them. We all know that the
more specific a law or rule is, the easier it is to find
loopholes in it. The bottom line is that more aggressive
enforcement of indecency regulations on broadcast TV and radio
could backfire and actually lead to even racier content. Members
of Congress would be advised to look before they leap.
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