Posted on 04/04/2013 4:13:16 PM PDT by Morgana
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The FCC is seeking comments from the public as they consider relaxing their obscenity standards for broadcast television and radio. If adopted the new, lower standards would allow brief “non-sexual” nudity and isolated expletives even during prime time, when most families are typically watching with their children.
Currently, broadcasters face heavy fines for violations of the indecency policy, which bans strong curse words and most nudity. But as media culture grows coarser, the backlog of reported offenses has grown unmanageable for the FCC, leading Chairman Julius Genachowski to order the Enforcement Bureau to reduce the backlog by focusing only on “egregious cases” and dismissing as many of the others as they can.
Since September 2012, the Bureau has reduced its case load by 70 percent, according to a memo released Monday by the FCC. More than a million indecency complaints have been dismissed, many of them because the statute of limitations had expired or they were considered “too stale to pursue.”
Now, the Commission is seeking public comment on whether or not they should permanently relax the indecency standard to include only the most egregious offenses.
Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, is urging those concerned about the impact of the proposed policy on children to take advantage of the public comment period and tell the FCC not to relax the rules.
“American society is moving further and further away from the Biblical standards of morals and decency set by God, to the point that we have to worry about what our children view in the supermarket checkout, in their school textbooks, and now even in their own homes on television and radio,” said Wildmon. “We’re urging the FCC to uphold high decency standards in entertainment in order to protect America’s children and families.”
Specifically, the FCC is asking citizens to weigh in on how much cursing is too much, and whether nudity should be treated differently than swearing. Citizens are also invited to offer their thoughts on anything else having to do with the indecency standards.
The filing period lasts only through the end of the month.
Comments may be submitted to the FCC online by using the Electronic Filing System and referencing Proceeding No. 13-86, or by referencing GN Docket No. 13-86 through mail at:
Commission’s Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20554
For additional instructions and ways to contact the FCC, read their press release here.
“The latter are not pushed into households.”
And neither are TV’s nor network programming.
Adults in a household have the responsibility to not keep the front door wide open and keep it locked as to prevent intruders, the adults also have the responsibility to keep the car keys away from a child that my abscond with a car and adults have the responsibility to utilize good judgement in keeping their children from watching inappropriate programming.
Programming is not forced onto you TV and into your home, but rather programming is invited into your home.
TV’s have an off switch, TV’s have a channel tuning button, TV’s have channel blocks and no one is this country is forced to have a TV or watch a certain channel.
The PTC is free to have their opinion on the matter and may be a help to those parents who may be incapable or simply need assistance in determining what programming is appropriate and inappropriate for their children.
However, parents do not need a nanny state to determine which news and entertainment programming meets approval of the the Obama Administration.
Yes but you are assuming a child can make the decision to turn off content that is illegal for them. That’s why you have to make the content provider responsible.
Otherwise, you could just sell liquor to children and blame the parents for letting them out of the house.
No, I make the assumption that responsible parents control what thier kids watch on TV.
The content provider, nor the Obama Adminisration’s FCC should be responsible for raising people’s children.
Don’t you also assume that parents won’t let kids buy alcohol? So why is the store responsible for preventing the sale?
Again, not a good analogy.
A legal requirement for a liquor store to check the ID’s of customers does not infringe upon an adult’s right to legally purchase alcohol.
Obama administration restrictions on what news and entertainment content a network can broadcast does infringe upon rights.
No but it makes the vendor responsible for verifying that the transaction is legal. If you are going to broadcast porn openly, you need to verify that the recipient is legally allowed to have it.
I do not believe the story states that the FCC will permit the broadcasting of porn.
Why do you not believe that you or adults in your family are incapable of controlling what TV station the children watch?
Well, considering they are on a backpacking trip to Mt Rogers, obviously not. Do you expect to be with your kids 24x7 until they turn 18? If so, you have “helicopter parent of the year” sewn up.
Perhaps the networks could make the smut unavailable to people for whom it is illegal like we do alcohol. I don’t think a store clerk can sell alcohol to a 12 year-old simply because their parents aren’t around. I don’t think that is too much to ask.
And are you saying children never watch TV anywhere but their own homes?
The FCC was around way before Obama. It’s just Obama’s administration wants to corrupt children even more. That’s why they are learning how wonderful homosexuality is in kindergarten. Whose side are you on?
“The FCC was around way before Obama. It’s just Obama’s administration wants to corrupt children even more. That’s why they are learning how wonderful homosexuality is in kindergarten. Whose side are you on?”
I’m on the side of Personal Responsibility and the duty of parents to control what comes into their homes.
Could you please cite the instances of TV and radio networks that have taken control of public schools in order to teach homosexuality to kindergarten classes?
I thought you didn’t want the government running things. They run the schools. Do you have children?
If you do, you understand they watch TV in places besides their own homes, don’t you? Have you listened to rap on the radio? You do know children listen to the radio outside of their own home, don’t you? You are either thick-headed or purposely being difficult. Either way, I am disappointed a Freeper has this sort of attitude about protecting children.
How do you feel about abortion?
“I thought you didn’t want the government running things. They run the schools. Do you have children?”
“If you do, you understand they watch TV in places besides their own homes, don’t you? Have you listened to rap on the radio? You do know children listen to the radio outside of their own home, don’t you? You are either thick-headed or purposely being difficult. Either way, I am disappointed a Freeper has this sort of attitude about protecting children.”
“How do you feel about abortion?”
Again, I will protect my own children and do not need the Nanny State Federal Government to help me raise my kids. But, I do understand that some folks may buy into the “It Takes A Village” approach when raising their children.
I have listed to rap music and have also listened to rock and country music. Each of those genres of music touch on topics that are violent and promote drug use.
Why do you believe that the Federal Government is better at deciding what is best for your children?
I don’t think the federal government knows what is best for my children. The airwaves belong to the people. I am a people and I don’t want the trash available to my children.
“I don’t think the federal government knows what is best for my children. The airwaves belong to the people. I am a people and I don’t want the trash available to my children.:
If you do not want the federal government deciding what is best, then you may not want to ask the federal government to control the actions of a private company.
The broadcast TV networks control the airwaves and the people decide what is the best programming by making it most profitable to the broadcasters.
Let the market and not Obama bureaucrats decide.
I do not want nudity and profanity on broadcast tv. The government does. I do not want the government deciding. The people will oppose this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.