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March 08, 2005
Editorial
On March 2, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, announced that they plan to push for legislation that would extend FCC
regulations to cable networks, such as HBO and FX, and to satellite radio stations, like Sirius. According to Stevens, families wind up viewing inappropriate programs because they don’t know which channels are cable and which are on the regular network.
Currently, federal regulations ban broadcast stations from airing obscene material and place restrictions on so-called indecent material, like profanity and sexually explicit dialogue. The reason for the desired change? “In this country, there has to be some standards of decency,” says Steves.
That’s a troubling sentence. “It’s not fair to subject over-the-air broadcasters to one set of rules and subject cable and satellite to no rules,” according to Barton. But fair is actually a pretty good word to describe the current system. Why on earth should cable stations be subjected to the same regulations as regular broadcasts? People have to pay money for cable, and it’s likely that they have a pretty good idea of what they are getting when they order HBO or the Playboy channel.
If parents are concerned about what is being made available to their children, they ought to carefully consider what they purchase. Regular broadcast control may be legitimate, because anyone with a television can pick up on whatever is being broadcast. But cable, being subscription-only, is entirely outside of this realm and should be left alone.
Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” notwithstanding, it’s certainly not as though broadcast television is all about family values to begin with. This year’s biggest new broadcast show is Desperate Housewives, which details the wholesome efforts of four suburban wives and their many affairs, sexual and otherwise.
Last year’s hit show The O.C. has a family tree with more intertwining branches than even most soap operas can boast.
The measure proposed by these congressmen narrows the ever-diminishing sector of the media that is still actually allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) expressed serious concern over this recent push. “I have strong concerns about the constitutionality of such a provision,” he said in the Washington Post.
This issue had already arrived in the Supreme Court in 1996, when a lawsuit was brought against
Playboy Television in an attempt to regulate what was aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, declared that “Even where speech is indecent and enters the home, the objective of shielding children does not suffice to support a blanket ban,” and that although material broadcasted may be cause for concern, it must be addressed “in a way consistent with First Amendment principles.”
And, really, who the hell wants to watch an even more censored version of South Park anyway?
Posted by msveum at March 8, 2005 04:45 PM
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