Thursday, March 18, 2010

BLOG 8

FCC stands for Federal Communications Commission.
The three pieces of information that a person must give the FCC when complaining about indecency on a radio or tv broadcast are: first, information regarding what was actually said or depicted that was indecent; second, the date and time of the broadcast; third, the call sign, channel, or frequency of the station involved.
On February 25, 2003, ABC aired an episode of "NYPD Blue," that contained images of a woman's naked buttocks and a portion of the side of one of her breasts as she was preparing to get into the shower, and she was walked in on by a boy about 7 or 8 years old. Several complaints were filed to the FCC for indecency. Three factors were taken into account by the FCC in regards to deciding if the station should be fined: one, was the material explicit; two, was it dwelled-upon; and three, was it shocking/titillating? It was decided that all three aspects were indeed true, and ABC and any other broadcasting companies that aired the episode before 10:00 pm were fined $27,500.
I think that for broadcast company executives, the decision to air indecent material and risk being fined is really a choice between profit and reputation. In some cases, the profits made by broadcasting companies are greater than any risk to their reputation; in some cases, not. In most cases, I think, it is about dollars and cents. So the fines issued by the FCC may or may not become a factor in this decision making process.

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