\It wasn't even the most offensive part,"" said Communications Committee Commissioner Michael Powell, as quoted in the Washington Post. ""[Janet Jackson's briefly exposed nipple] was the finale of something that was offensive. The whole performance was onstage copulation."" He added, ""This really crossed a heinous line.""
It has been?? a tough year for Michael, son of Colin, and frankly, the lesser of two Powells. And not just because of the corset-adorned gentlemen who, as he so delicately put it, 'copulated' Janet Jackson on stage (I would have said 'danced in the background').?? No, Powell's year has been far more difficult than being subjected to an MTV-produced halftime show and a millisecond of breast visibility.
Over the past year, the Federal Communications Commission, led by Powell, has relaxed the government's guidelines for media ownership in America. Like airlines and telephone providers, there has been a tradition of regulating media interests in major markets. Powell, to the dismay of most citizens who follow these matters, decided to deregulate. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., launched a campaign against Powell, as did conservative Orin Hatch.?? Independent radio stations were infuriated,?? terrified media watchdog groups like Common Cause found their memberships grow by tens of thousands and media conglomerates?? like Tribune Corp., Time Warner, Clear Channel and Fox were thrilled.??
What was at issue were four simple rule changes. Companies are no longer barred from owning both a TV station and a daily newspaper in the same market (as long as the market has more than three TV stations). A single corporation can now own more TV stations in the same area. Any company?? can own enough TV stations to reach 45 percent of the populace.?? Radio station conglomerates can now own more stations in the same market.
Deregulation of the media is dicey. The last time radio ownership was deregulated a few key players bought most of the top-rated radio stations. One of them, Clear Channel, bought the vast majority. With an effective lock on the market, bands are now threatened with decreased airplay for not playing shows or doing promotions Clear Channel desires, since few other radio stations are left to play them.
News coverage has also begun to falter. When television stations in Los Angeles were bought by Viacom, the two newsrooms began to send the same reporter to cover a story-the consolidation of separate entities into a ""vertically-integrated media conglomerate."" With few other voices to be heard, the corporate networks who gained the most failed to cover the story of FCC deregulation. The Pew Research Foundation found nearly three quarters of Americans?? ""had heard nothing"" about the case.
Liberals feared freedom of the press would become, for the first time, a limiting factor as networks chose which stories best fit their interests. Conservatives?? feared a medium they perceived had a liberal bias would expand and take over all markets. In September, the United States Senate voted to reverse the changes and sent its proposal to the Speaker of the House, who has since chosen to not hold a vote. In October, 190 U.S. Representatives signed a letter petitioning to bring the issue to the floor.
People who disagree with the ruling have always had righteous indignation on their side. What they've?? never had is a way to use the FCC's own priorities against it. That is, until Powell threatened to fine a halftime show produced by MTV for the merely suggestive dance sequence that led up to the actual indecent exposure.?? They were waiting, as it turns out, for MTV to cross a heinous line.
The vast majority of FCC fines for indecency go to media conglomerates-many times reaching the maximum fee of?? $27,500. Only once in the past four years has a locally-owned stateside radio station been fined for indecency over the minimum $7,000. While claims against local companies are for broadcasts on a single station, Clear Channel and Infinity's rampantly syndicated programs hit airwaves across the country. Less than a month ago, Clear Channel's ""Bubba the Love Sponge"" program had 26 indecency violations amounting to $755,000.??
In 2002, ""Opie and Anthony"" broadcast couples having sex in various places around New York City for the national syndicate Infinity Broadcasting, which aired the segment?? across the nation. Thirteen stations fined $27,500 amounted to a $357,500 fine.?? Infinity's parent? Viacom, owner of MTV.
This, of course, does not count indecent material that was not prosecuted. Clear Channel runs a series of spoof advertisements, like the now infamous homosexual-bashing ""Butt Pirates of the Caribbean"" sketch, and Shock Jock programs run rampant in radio. If the fully-clothed and only vaguely suggestive burlesque portions of the Super Bowl halftime show were obscene,?? then much of Howard Stern's morning show is, a fact the FCC must have been aware of to fine the king of morning radio's parent, Infinity, well over $1 million. And allowing Infinity to expand further due to deregulation just allows more of this 'smut' to be broadcast.
Are the Super Bowl ads and halftime show (sans the last three seconds) offensive enough to be worthy of investigation, scrutiny and penalty? Probably not. But if Mike Powell is enthusiastically headed down this route, then clearly deregulating radio and television is only letting the porn peddlers grow bigger.?? If stopping filth is our priority, Mr. Powell,?? re-regulate the media.
jhuchill@wisc.edu.
