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So... here's a legit question

R

radioriot7

Guest
A TV station in Phoenix, AZ had 10 minutes of hard core porn interrupt a show hosted by Tom Browkaw. Apparently an employee has been fired - but ummm hello where is the FCC? Where is the outrage?

There has been so much talk on this board about indecent material on Atlanta radio - and what is questionable, and what IF ANYTHING the FCC should or would do.

But why is there a double standard for TV. Janet barely flashes a boob for a second and the world falls apart - fines are thrown everywhere and it trickles down to radio over the next few years with all the radio companies tightening up, and not allowing even slight innuendo. BUT this TV station aired PORNOGRAPHY for 10 minutes!!! Sure it was a mistake and sabotage from an employee, but it's barely a story. I'm baffled.

Thoughts?
 
Well, if the last TV boobage incident is any indicator, all manner of hell will rain down on radio stations as a result while the TV stations stand by nonchalantly whistling and walking away.

Was it in HD? ;D
 
Well, it's not that much of a story since it only affected Phoenix. The TV stations, although loving to take shots at one another, usually only take a small shot out of courtesy since they might be next. And, since this was probably an NBC affiliate, what's their share in the market? That makes a big difference, too.

Like here. If one of the former CBS46 personalities does something outrageous, it won't get talked about much. But, Warren Savage, who's been off the air at WSB for over a year, is still getting press with his current run-ins with the law.

When she was on top in the ratings pool, Porsche Foxx did one of the dumbest things and drove drunk with a suspended license, plus had a small amount of the wacko weed in her possession. Does anybody care what she's done since being "knocked off the mountain"? The last I heard was the report about her house catching fire a couple of months after she was fired. That was what, three years ago?

The Janet Jackson incident was national, and not only national, during the Super Bowl. Honestly, just about every TV station in the country has an operator "mis-switch" story, usually involving porn, for some odd reason (good thing they're REALLY monitoring their station! :-\). Pending on the severity (and how many calls they got), the MCO is usually reprimanded, and 98% of the time, fired. Then, they get a job at a station down the street!
 
From the accounts I've read no one was fired because this appears to have been sabotage against the station. That's why there's no FCC outrage.

If you have new information showing this was a deliberate act by a station employee, or that an employee was viewing the porn and it accidentally got onto the air, please post it.
 
FloydB said:
Well, it's not that much of a story since it only affected Phoenix. The TV stations, although loving to take shots at one another, usually only take a small shot out of courtesy since they might be next. And, since this was probably an NBC affiliate, what's their share in the market? That makes a big difference, too.
Click to expand...

KPPX, the station this happened to, is the ION O&O station. The NBC station is KPNX (WXIA/WATL's sister).

The Janet Jackson incident was national, and not only national, during the Super Bowl. Honestly, just about every TV station in the country has an operator "mis-switch" story, usually involving porn, for some odd reason (good thing they're REALLY monitoring their station! :-\). Pending on the severity (and how many calls they got), the MCO is usually reprimanded, and 98% of the time, fired. Then, they get a job at a station down the street!
Click to expand...

The person who did this was probably disgruntled and wanted KPPX to get an FCC fine. That is why radio personalities never get an on-air goodbye when a format flip occurs, because most of these companies fear the wrath of the FCC. (The end of Cool 105.7 was extremely rare, as JJ Jackson and Chris Morgan got to stay on the air live for 2 days after learning they would be canned.)

Personally, I think the prohabition of the broadcast of adult matter is unconstitutional. I wonder what the Supreme Court Justices were on in the 70's when they heard the Pacifica/WBAI case involving George Carlin's "7 Dirty Words".
 
jal41 said:
Personally, I think the prohabition of the broadcast of adult matter is unconstitutional. I wonder what the Supreme Court Justices were on in the 70's when they heard the Pacifica/WBAI case involving George Carlin's "7 Dirty Words".
Click to expand...

Just chiming in with some pearls of wisdom from my Con Law II class:

Broadcast of adult matter is not proscribed if it is merely indecent. It is "channeled" by the FCC to between 10 pm and 6 am, and that "channeling" regulation is constitutional, according to Pacifica v. FCC.

It's like the erogenous zoning cases which permit local ordinances regulating time, manner, and place of adult-oriented businesses. People who think free speech should mean "anything goes" misunderstand the Constitutional interpretation for two reasons: (1) it is unsupportable under either a textualist or originalist argument (i.e., the intent of the framers), and (2) the Supreme Court jurisprudence extending the First Amendment, starting in the early twentieth century, doesn't go that far.
 
Hate to derail the topic, ssnake, but what about the e/i requirement. Why is that not Unconstitutional? I would understand it if PBS didn't exist. However PBS is there (and some markets have two of them OTA) with e/i programming almost all the time, why force everyt other station to air same for a few hours each week. Look at what some of the stations are putting on for e/i: WTBS airs Saved By The Bell for goodness sakes...that's not educational in any stretch of the imagination.
 
Brian Donegan said:
Hate to derail the topic, ssnake, but what about the e/i requirement. Why is that not Unconstitutional? I would understand it if PBS didn't exist. However PBS is there (and some markets have two of them OTA) with e/i programming almost all the time, why force everyt other station to air same for a few hours each week. Look at what some of the stations are putting on for e/i: WTBS airs Saved By The Bell for goodness sakes...that's not educational in any stretch of the imagination.
Click to expand...

e/i is not unconstitutional because it is another FCC-promulgated regulation in the public interest. The public technically owns the spectrum, but the FCC is given a directive to manage it, based upon what it thinks is in the public interest. As licensor, the FCC can charge licensing fees, set terms, and demand exactions (e.g., e/i programming). Think of e/i as a tax on TV broadcasting payable in kind. Of course with any legal regulation, the definitions are never clear, which is why you might see Saved by the Bell or those telenovelas on Univision marked e/i. But the FCC can step in to refine the definition by way of administrative action, which is precisely what they are doing with Univision's telenovela e/i programming.

Many of the free speech arguments applied to broadcasting don't work -- the broadcast spectrum is not common carrier because of resource limitations. The FCC can impose rules like the Fairness Doctrine however, which was held constitutional.
 
Saved By The Bell is too e/i! Zack teaches a lesson every episode! And, I got my first crush on hotties like Kelly and Lisa! They taught me about the birds and the bees ;D
 
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