Russ Pearlman's Blog

On April 28, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the FCC can fine broadcasters even in the case of fleeting expletives. As you may remember, there were a number of high profile cases during entertainment award shows where U2′s Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie had used the “f word” during their acceptance speeches.

At issue in front of the Supreme Court was actually a fairly narrow question: since the FCC had for years ignored such minor slips, was it now reasonable for them to change their policy and start to impose fines now? By making their ruling, the court essentially says ‘Yes’ and remanded their decision back to the appeals court for further deliberation.

Now, you might ask yourself a few questions: 1) are fleeting expletives really so bad? 2) how can networks control such things – after all, in the cases sited above, these are not scripted comments and 3) since so much worse is already on cable, the Internet and late-night TV – aren’t we being prudish in these cases?

Well, let me take them one at a time then:

1) The cases where fleeting expletives were raised were during major, prime-time awards shows. These are the types of shows that often family members enjoy together. A single foul word is not going to corrupt a child, but as we saw following Bono’s initial ‘reaction’ that other celebrities were quick to create their own publicity by following suit. By being lax the first time, the FCC has essentially ‘invited’ more occurrences – and the change towards a zero-tolerance policy essentially snuffs it out completely. (After all, we are just talking about a fine – it’s not like we are going to shut down these major broadcasters.)

2) Modern broadcast television often utilizes delays of 5-7 seconds for live events. Simply ‘bleeping’ or even wholesale cutting of broadcast is quite easy to accomplish. Any argument of hardship is simply a red herring.

3) As I pointed out in point #1 above, the comments from Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie all occurred during shows that are likely to have large family audiences. This is not a show like 24, Lost or Southland where a parent has a reasonable expectation of violence, sexuality or explicit language. So, the challenge with these situations is that parental control can not be reasonably set. It’s like going to a ‘G’ rated movie but knowing that ‘R’ rated language could slip in at any time. If this were the case, then no parent could reasonably allow their child to watch ANY broadcast while safely assuming that their child will not be exposed to explicit language. I know that’s stretching the situation, but it’s logically true.

While the Supreme Court ruling answered a narrow question, there are still some larger points to be settled. So, this is by no means over. But, I do hope that the FCC fines stand and the major broadcasters take heed – if parents are to be enabled to help set limits for their children, they need the support of the media industry to help establish reasonable expectations of content.

Up next – Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’…