Copps said that the broadcasters themselves could resolve any ambiguities they perceive by drafting and adopting what he described as a "voluntary code of broadcaster conduct." "There's enough stuff out there that shouldn't be on." "I think most of the things we're dealing with right now are pretty clear, from the standpoint of being indecent," he said. He also disputed the notion that the commission's standards on indecency were too vague. But, he said, "I applaud the effort at self policing." commissioner who has been one of the strongest critics of media companies, acknowledged that some broadcasters appeared to be overreacting. Smulyan said, has convinced station executives to hire at least two paralegals whose responsibilities will include deleting potentially offensive material on live broadcasts before those words can be heard by the audience, using technology that delays the airing of those programs by an interval of several seconds.Īmong those who will be subject to that legal backstop is the Chicago radio host known as "Mancow," who mixes celebrity interviews with racier fare. People are just not sure what the standards really are." "Everyone is going to err on the side of caution. "If you're asking if there has been overcaution on the part of broadcasters today, I think the answer is yes," said Jeff Smulyan, the chairman and chief executive of Emmis Communications, which owns 16 television stations and 27 radio stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities. A series of recent decisions by the F.C.C., as well as bills passed in Congress, have put them on notice that even the unintentional broadcast of something that could be considered indecent or obscene could result in stiffer fines or even the revocation of their licenses. Television and radio broadcasters say they have little choice but to practice a form of self-censorship, swinging the pendulum of what they consider acceptable in the direction of extreme caution. Taking similar cues from regulators, an Indianapolis radio station pre-empted words like "urinate," "damn" and "orgy" from going out over the air during a recent broadcast of Rush Limbaugh's talk show.Īnd classic rock radio stations have felt compelled to prune their playlists, striking songs like Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back" and "Bitch" by the Rolling Stones. They chose not to make available to PBS member stations an unexpurgated version of the critically acclaimed British series "Prime Suspect," and instead sent out two edited versions: one with all of the salty language edited, and another with only some of the possibly offending words excised. The producers of "Masterpiece Theater," intent on staying in the good graces of a Federal Communications Commission increasingly vigilant for instances of indecency, took a step last month they never had before. The reverberations from this year's fiasco of a Super Bowl half-time show are reaching every corner of the broadcasting world, and not even the viewers of "Masterpiece Theater" are immune.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |