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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Citing new indecency guidelines, the commission fines a radio station for playing Eminem.
Jun 13, 2001 | On Feb. 6, newly appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell insisted that he was not going to be the nation's "nanny" when it came to objectionable programming. So why, all of a sudden, is the FCC micromanaging the playlist of a pop station in Colorado Springs, Colo.?
For years the FCC has neglected its oversight role concerning radio content. But on June 1, citing its newly revised indecency guidelines, the FCC fined KKMG $7,000 for airing a "clean" version of Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady," a song that, according to the FCC's ruling, "contains unmistakable offensive sexual references in conjunction with expletives that appear intended to pander and shock."
The station has until July 1 to appeal the fine. The station's lawyers will likely note that the original complaint was filed by a listener nearly one year ago -- predating the FCC's current indecency guidelines. This means that not only did it take the FCC 11 months to determine that a song was indecent (shouldn't that take, at most, a day or two?), but also that during the investigation the rules were changed mid-game.
Time is rarely of the essence for the FCC -- after all, the commission spent nearly seven years coming up with its new indecency standards, which stress offending "material must describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities."
"Slim Shady" boasts such material in spades. But for years station programmers assumed that if they aired clean, or edited, versions of raunchy songs provided to them by record companies, stations would not have to fear FCC punishment. (Earlier this year, the commission fined a Wisconsin station for mistakenly airing an unedited version of the same Eminem song.)
The working assumption has been that virtually any song was suitable for airplay as long as the profanity was bleeped out. And with artists getting more and more blunt, the bleeps have been flying fast and furious. But now the bleeps won't cut it (the FCC considers the entire context, not just individual words, when deciding indecency today) and programmers suddenly must figure out if the FCC is just sending a warning shot, or playing for keeps.
Then again, programmers are probably getting what they deserve for letting record executives, of all people, help them set decency standards. It's pure folly -- major record companies are in the business of selling as many records as possible, period, regardless of how raunchy or profane. That was signaled a few years ago when Atlantic Records actually released rapper L'il Kim's "Queen Bitch" as a radio single ("Murder-scene bitch/Clean bitch/Disease-free bitch"), shipping out an edited copy that seemed to have as many bleeps as actual lyrics. More recently, give a listen to rapper Mystikal's ode to sex, "Shake Ya Ass," a hit on radio. The song's first unedited verse? "I came here with my dick in my hand/Don't make me leave here with my foot in your ass."
So it was not all that surprising that when Interscope execs first listened to "The Real Slim Shady" -- as Eminem rapped about Pamela Anderson getting her ass whupped, Chistina Aguilera giving blowjobs and then giving Eminem V.D., told Will Smith to go fuck himself, mentioned women's clitorises and fantasized about pinching asses, jerking off with Jergens hand cream and humping dead mooses -- they figured they had a hit for pop radio on their hands.
But the Real Slim Shady may now have to look over his shoulder. There's a new regime in power in Washington. The new administration's priorities are clear: If you want a deregulated environment in which you can boost profits by any means necessary at the expensive of broadcast quality and employee job security, that's fine. But if you want to push at the edge of the free-speech envelope, that's out of the question.
