Indecency wars

What may be additionally frustrating for activists who worked on the same side as Copps and Adelstein during the consolidation battle is that the two FCC commissioners first embraced the indecency issue via the media ownership debate. At the time, they argued that as fewer and fewer corporations bought up more and more programming outlets, there would be a race to the bottom in content, and that without hands-on local owners, radio and television stations would no longer have a sense of community standards, leading to an increase in indecent programming. Both Democratic commissioners urged Powell to order a study of that possibility. In a 2002 written statement to the press, Copps wondered, "Has consolidation led to an increase in the amount of indecent programming? When programming decisions are made on Wall Street or Madison Avenue, rather than by local broadcasters on Main Street, does indecency grow more pervasive? We must answer these questions before the Commission votes on whether to eliminate our media concentration protections this spring."

That rationale struck a chord with cultural conservatives, who were already protesting raunchy content and distrustful of allowing major media empires to expand. Even today, on the Parents Television Council home page, right next to the "Broadcast Indecency" banner, visitors can learn more about the issue of "Media Ownership/Localism."

"I sat two chairs away from [PTC's] Brent Bozell and testified alongside him" at congressional hearings on media consolidation," recalls Rintels. "I could've written his comments and he could've written mine. We see a link between ownership and indecency," he says.

In the end, Copps and Adelstein were not able to get Powell to look into the "consolidation equals indecency" angle of the ownership debate. And Martin himself quietly sided with Powell in voting for relaxing the ownership rules. (It will be interesting to see if Martin, as Powell did before him, tries to keep separate the issues of consolidation and indecency.)

The bipartisan flavor of the effort, however, proved to be critical in getting Congress to rebuke the FCC's new media ownership rules. "It was very important and something we worked on incessantly," says McChesney. "For Republicans to go against leadership in the House or Senate on media consolidation, that required a tremendous amount of courage, and that backbone came from hundreds of thousands of conservatives around this country saying this is important to us."

Now that indecency has moved to front and center, some media activists are concerned that the issue of consolidation will get lost in the stampede to crack down on indecency. "I made the case to Copps that the solution to indecency wasn't censorship and fines, it's breaking up the media monopolies," says McChesney. "My sense is he's well aware that censorship is not the way out of this. He gets that. He's basically a progressive guy. He's very concerned about vulgarity issues and he's talked about fines, but he's not on the side of full-throttled censorship."

Copps is not the only key anti-consolidation player who has teamed up with the indecency activists. Consumers Union, which played a central role in rallying opposition to the new ownership rules, is also pitching in. The pro-consumer group has for years pushed the idea of a la carte choices for subscribers, demanding that cable television providers allow customers to pick and choose the specific channels they want to watch and pay for. Cable companies, though, have balked at the idea.

Now Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has embraced cable choice as a possible way to deal with indecency. The idea is that if parents were offended by a potty-mouthed sitcom on Comedy Central (such as "South Park"), for instance, they would have the option of not paying for it. (Cable channels don't have to adhere to the same definitions of indecency as broadcast networks do, and only an act of Congress could change that.)

"Too much of the indecency debate centers on censorship. We think a la carte could be a salvation and would mean more choices for consumers," says Susanna Montezemolo, a policy analyst for Consumers Union, who stresses that the group does not share conservatives' larger concerns about cracking down on indecency. "We've been working with some strange bedfellows on this sliver of the indecency debate, such as the Parents Research Council, Concerned Women of America and other conservative groups. But we're very careful in where we're going with this and what we advocate for: cable channel choice." She adds, "Creative coalition building is critical right now in Washington."

The Center for Digital Democracy's Chester warns, however, that "working with groups that want to censor speech is always dangerous." He and others recall that last Veterans Day weekend, more than 20 ABC affiliates refused to air the Academy Award-winning film "Saving Private Ryan" because of concerns station owners had about the gritty movie's profanity, and whether the get-tough FCC might even issue fines for the broadcast of a World War II drama. There's a tremendous amount of self-censorship going on already, agrees Rintels.

But in the light of the FCC's recent dismissal of several indecency claims, is the fear of widespread censorship overblown? The rejected claims were filed against Nielsen-rating staples like "Friends," "The Simpsons" and "CSI," as well as a couple of newsmaking incidents. One incident involved a sultry promo for ABC's "Monday Night Football" that featured "Desperate Housewives'" Nicollette Sheridan dropping her towel in the locker room while trying to seduce NFL star Terrell Owens. The other incident concerned a CNN producer who inadvertently screamed some profanities when balloons at the Democratic National Convention failed to drop on cue following Sen. John Kerry's prime-time address.

"In context, none of the segments were patently offensive under contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, and thus not indecent," the agency said in a statement. The FCC also ruled that "the material was not profane, in context."

Observers on both sides of the debate doubt that those rulings serve as a good barometer of where the FCC and Congress are heading on indecency. "Chairman Powell left office frustrated by his legacy of indecency enforcer," suggests Winter at the PTC. "That really embarrassed him. So on his way out the door he dismissed a whole bunch of complaints."

Meanwhile, Rep. Sanders finds no comfort in the FCC's dismissal of complaints against "Friends" and "The Simpsons," suggesting the pendulum has swung so far to the right that hugely popular, family-friendly shows are already being scrutinized for content infractions. "Let's take a deep breath. I don't pay all that much attention to television ratings, but wasn't 'Friends' one of the most popular shows on television? And the FCC ruled it wasn't indecent? Look at where this debate about indecency is already," says Sanders.

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