St. Joseph’s Preparatory School

Philadelphia PA

Government Regulation on Television Content
Teacher: Mr.Conners

Raymond Perfetti

12^th Grade

The Land And Air Of The Free

Broadcasting is the electronic transmission of sounds or images for the purpose of communicating ideas, information, opinions, and entertainment. In 1927 the United States Congress established the Federal Radio Commission, which became the Federal Communications Commission in 1934. The FCC is officially responsible for “regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire” for the purpose of “promoting safety of life and property”. Since 1934, technology has expanded exponentially along with the responsibilities of the FCC. Today it is the source of many government regulations, controlling everything from our national telephone network to the programs on television.

This paper will deal with the current FCC regulations imposed on the content of television broadcasting. Evidence will be presented to show how too many regulations allow the FCC to regulate content based on their own moral guidelines and how this infringes upon our constitutional right to free speech.

A complex and comprehensive regulatory system was embodied in the Communications Act of 1934 in order to eliminate the interference created when many different parties broadcast over the same frequency in the same area. At the time technology was limited therefore making the electromagnetic spectrum a scarce commodity that the government felt had to be protected and used for the “public interest.”

The FCC rationalized content regulation based on this belief of scarcity up until the Supreme Court case FCC v. League of Women Voters California in 1984 that stated if Congress or the FCC would say that broadcasting was no longer scarce, it, too, would agree, however they were very quick to offer other rational for regulation.

The FCC and Congress felt that it was also government’s responsibility to regulate indecency. Indecency was first clearly defined in the Supreme Court case, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. This case stated that “the broadcast media have established a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans. Patently offensive, indecent material presented over the airwaves confronts the citizen, not only public, but also in the privacy of the home, where the individual’s right to be left alone plainly outweighs the First Amendment rights of an intruder.” Basically the court defined broadcast television as an intruder in American homes. However, this ruling begs the question, if the American public is offended by the content on television why would they not simply choose to turn off their television or watch a different program. To further rationalize the existence of content regulations the court bestowed the FCC with parental supervision over all American children.

The ruling of FCC v. Pacifica went on to say “children have access to radios and in many cases are unsupervised by parents.” In crafting rules to protect children from “indecent programming”, the FCC ruled that parents do not sufficiently read programming guides and are frequently not home to supervise their children. Many critics argued that parents should have the right to choose the medium and the responsibility for controlling our children’s access to television programs regardless of whether or not bureaucrats believe their parenting to be sufficient or acceptable. Having taken on this censorship role, the FCC then set out to clearly define what was “indecent.”

In order to do this the FCC issued a laundry list of guidelines that defined indecent material as “patently offensive (content) as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.” The definition, however, clearly failed to put out a formula for deciding what is indecent and therefore leaves it up to the FCC to decide what is acceptable free speech. Not only does the FCC decide what broadcasters cannot air but they also mandate what broadcasters have to air.

Even as recently as 1996, the FCC adopted new rules requiring television broadcaster to air more children’s educational programming. The FCC characterizes these rules as not mandatory but rather in place to assist broadcasters with compliance. Regardless of their purpose, it is clear that the FCC mandates television broadcasters to air what the FCC deems important, or face possible revocation of their license.

In recent years new forms of broadcast have “intruded” their way into American homes. Cable television is now in more than 60% of American homes and with much fewer restrictions than air broadcast, cable threatens to defy the FCC’s well planed out strategy for placing their moral laws into our stream of information and entertainment.

The FCC still does place restrictions on cable but certain networks such as HBO, offer the American public a beacon of hope in the pursuit of free speech. Many Americans choose not to watch these minority of networks and that is a choice that every tax-paying American should have the right to make and not just those with the extra sixty dollars a month it takes to watch this, not so free, speech.

            With the rise of a new generation of American voters, politicians are being pushed into giving the broadcast medium more freedom to air, what would previously have been considered, unacceptable content. In order to protect children the FCC is testing other solutions for censorship.

            By January 1, 2000, the FCC required television manufacturers to include a V-Chip in all model televisions measuring 13 inches or greater. The V-Chip blocks programming based on a rating system that all broadcast programs are required to display. In theory, parents are easily able to select what level of content their television can display and the simple input of a password would allow the parents to bypass the blocking mechanism. Most V-Chip functions are handled by just a few lines of code in a television’s microcontroller making them very easy for manufacturers to incorporate in their models.

            Even with this new technology in place the FCC continues to censor television content however the increasing pressure of society on government to give us the free speech permitted us by the US constitution is making it increasingly more difficult for the FCC to get away with forcing their moral values on the American public.

            In the near future we should expect to see the gap between free speech in print media and in broadcast media to become decreasingly noticeable and perhaps someday, censorship will become as alien to us as 8-track tapes. As for now we have no choice but to accept our big brother the FCC lingering over the air waves holding broadcasters at their mercy.

Required Reading Questions

1. According to the unknown author, the only way to prevent hijackers from gaining control of the airplane is to harden cockpit doors and allow no entry in or out of the cockpit in flight.
2. Lobbyists in favor of the bill argue that it’s members need regulatory relief to compete with cable television and other high-speed Internet providers. Their opponents argue the bill would give the Bells a stranglehold on high-speed Internet service and delay the development of next-generation Web technology.
3. Small business groups like HR 1831 because it gives small businesses easier solutions for waste disposal and also protects these small businesses that have not significantly harmed the environment from being sued by large polluters. I believe this law is helpful because it makes it easier for small business to properly dispose of waste without fear of corporate of bureaucratic backlash. If we do not do this, we open the doors for businesses to dispose improperly and therefore harm the environment.
4. People walking on the street and driving are distracted.
5. A burden hour is supposed to measure the time it takes to collect data and fill out federal forms, surveys and reports.
6. Liberman cited Graham’s past criticisms of clean-air and clean-water statutes and questioned whether he would weaken federal health, environmental and safety standards.

6a.  Risk analysis calculates the likelihood of a hazard against the costs and benefits

       of preventing it.

6b.  Every president since Jimmy Carter has ordered federal agencies to weigh

       potential cost and benefits when writing a rule.

6        Estimates range from $14 to $80 billion. OSHA responded that most companies will not have the act and it would save them $9 billion a year in lost productivity.

7. The iron triangle is an unbreakable alliance among Democratic committee chairmen, agency officials and interest groups that worked in concert to achieve common goals, whether it was funding special projects or protecting specific constituencies. Environmentalists say that they fear the formation of a new triad composed of industry officials, the White House and GOP committee chairmen that leaves them out of the equation.
8. take cooperative rather than confrontational approach

overhaul procedures used by the health care financing administration

increased drilling on public land

eased regulatory restrictions on energy producers

9. Required agencies to prove that a regulation’s benefits would outweigh its cost and in 1986 democrats deleted funds for OMBs
10. 15 years and 12 years
11. pro- gives people jobs -----con-may give jobs to unqualified people

      12. pro – looks ahead to prevent damage --- con-too much power to planning

            departments and other representative groups.

Work Cited

“Broadcasting.” Ed. Kenneth L. Karst, and Leonard W. Levy. Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. N.p.: MacMillan Reference USA, 2000

Udall, Morris K. "Science, Technology, and the First Amendment: Chapter 3 New Technologies for Disseminating News and Information.” 01 Sept. 1990: E-Library. 10 Mar. 2002

Wallace, Jonathan D. "Supreme Court's Rulings Threaten FREE SPEECH." USA Today Magazine. 01 Mar. 1999: E-Library. 04 Mar. 2002

Corn-Revere, Robert. "What's Behind the FCC'S RULES FOR KID'S TELEVISION?" USA Today Magazine. 01 July 1997: E-Library. 04 Mar. 2002

Anonymous. "FCC SPELLS OUT BROADCAST INDECENCY POLICIES." Communications Daily. 09 Apr. 2001: E-Library. 04 Mar. 2002

Anonymous. "FCC sets schedule on television V-chip." Electronic Engineering Times. 16 Mar. 1998: E-Library. 04 Mar. 2002