In an appearance before
Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super
Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission
chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S.
senators.
The
number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than
240,000 in the previous year, [FCC chairman Michael] Powell said. The
figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in
each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic
rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into
their homes.”
What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the
source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by
Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were
filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
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At issue is a process
that once relied upon aggrieved listeners and viewers contacting the
FCC, but that increasingly is driven by organized groups with a focus
on programming content. The FCC does not monitor programming for fear
of assuming a role as national censor; it relies on complaints to
initiate its indecency proceedings.
So far this year, the system has resulted in millions of dollars in settlements and proposed fines against broadcasters.
In such a system, even the number of complaints
becomes an object of contention. For example, the agency on Oct. 12, in
proposing fines of nearly $1.2 million against Fox Broadcasting and its
affiliates, said it received 159 complaints against Married by America,
which featured strippers partly obscured by pixilation.
But when asked, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau said it
could find only 90 complaints from 23 individuals. (The smaller total
was first reported by Internet-based TV writer Jeff Jarvis; Mediaweek
independently obtained the Enforcement Bureau’s calculation.)
And Fox, in a filing last Friday, told the FCC that it
should rescind the proposed fines, in part because the low number of
complaints fell far short of indicating that community standards had
been violated.
“All but four of the complaints were identical…and
only one complainant professed even to have watched the program,” Fox
said. It said the network and its stations had received 34 comments, “a
miniscule total for a show that had a national audience of 5.1 million
households.”
I knew it.
