If you read my last blog entry you will understand that this is my second time writing about the topic of the huge fine that the FCC recently imposed on the CBS network for an scene in an episode of the series “Without a Trace.” The tale doesn’t become any more palatable in writing it again … If you remember, it was the CBS network that the FCC fined $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s boob flash at the Superbowl back in 2004 which they judged to be “indecent.” According to U.S. regulations profanity or sexually explicit content is only allowed between 10 PM and 6 AM to protect children who it is assumed are less likely to be tuned in (do I need to point out the peculiar inconsistency in this legislation that extreme violence on television isn’t regulated?). On May 31st this year the FCC refused to reconsider the fine so it looks like the 20 CBS affiliates involved in Nipplegate will have to cough up. With the new judgment against CBS, the coughing up reaches a new level: The fine CBS and 10 affiliates face for a scene in the “Without a Trace” episode is a staggering $3.6 million!
So what is CBS being fined over? The 19th episode of “Without a Trace” titled “Our Sons and Daughters” originally aired on November 6, 2003, includes a flashback scene a in which a character recollects events that occurred at a teenage orgy some time before. The actual footage is definitely tacky and inappropriate for minors but hardly pornographic or even particularly titillating. It consists of a 45 second segment and a 15 second segment of the orgy that is extremely suggestive but hardly pornographic. There’s nothing explicit but nothing nice either. If you so desire you can see the clip on-line and I think you’ll agree that if this clip makes you glad that it only takes one hand to use a mouse, you are one sorry excuse for an adult. Now it is certainly true that “Without a Trace” can hardly be considered to be high art and that this scene was gratuitous and included for shock value but that said it was after 10PM, it wasn’t pornographic or explicit, and if you didn’t like the content you could have just reached over and turned it off. When this episode was originally aired the FCC received zero complaints. Things were different on the episode’s second showing on December 31, 2004, when the show came to the attention of the Parents Television Council, a right wing political activist organization (who were incidentally responsible for something like 99.8% of the complaints received by the FTC over Nipplegate according to a Mediaweek article) . The result was that the FTC received 4,211 complaints by e-mail. The PTC’s outrage was supported by the American Family Association, an ultra-Conservative Christian activist organization with a similar media agenda to that of the PTC – the AFA is notable for their ridiculous campaigns against the likes of the Ford Motor Company for “promoting homosexual lifestyles” and Nike for “promoting a back door move to legalize homosexual marriage.” A curious issue in the whole “Without a Trace” fracas is that the AFA claimed in a press release that the FCC received more than 70,000 complaints from AFA supporters which is a rather larger number than the FCC admitted to (maybe the missing messages got quite rightly caught in the FCC’s spam filters). Another curious and ironic issue is that the clip from “Without a Trace” that I linked to above is hosted with an explicit commentary on the PTC Web site! The commentary notes and describes details of the clip that the average viewer without a large screen, freeze frame, and way too much interest and time on their hands wouldn’t notice. Anyway, the bottom line is that the FCC decided that there was merit in these complaints (despite the extremely restricted base of the complaints being, as they were, derived mainly from just two sources) and levied the $3.6 million fine. Now if this were to happen today the fine wouldn’t be $3.6 million, it would be more like $36 million. The reason is that President Bush just signed into law the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act which raises the maximum indecency fines from $32,500 per station, per violation to US$325,000 per station, per violation. We can expect to see far more action on the indecency front over the next couple of years given the traction that these pressure groups are getting with the FCC. And the FCC is becoming far more politicized – the “newest” FCC commissioner, Deborah Taylor Tate, is particularly interested in the indecency issue (she is also in favor of DRM and intends to use her appointment as a “bully pulpit” to promote it). Next on the ultra-conservative Christian agenda: Satellite television. You like The Sopranos and Deadwood? Let these activists get away with promoting and enforcing their agendas and you can forget about any of the networks developing these kinds of shows, they just won’t be an acceptable risk if a group of self-righteous activists can force a willing FCC to levy fines in the range of tens of millions of dollars.
Links: Ars Technica article on the CBD fine SlashDot on PTC complaints Wikipedia on “Without a Trace” Wikipedia on the PTC Wikipedia on the AFA
