Posted on 02/26/2004 10:10:15 PM PST by Indy Pendance
Lines of indecency are blurred in life after Super Bowl
Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" jump-started the debate about what should be seen and heard on the public airwaves. Now, the decision by Clear Channel Communications to boot nationally syndicated shock jock Howard Stern's show from six of its stations has sent the discussion into overdrive.
"We're at a crossroads," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the industry's leading trade journal. "What do we do about the coarsening of America? That really is the issue."
Balancing free speech and public sensibilities has always been tricky. But fearing a crackdown from the Federal Communications Commission -- especially threats to pull the licenses of offending stations -- media giants are hustling to address the concerns on their own.
"It's a wake-up call," said John Walton, co-host of the Walton & Johnson morning show on KLOL-FM (101.1), of the latest controversy. "Basically, the boundaries have been expanding and expanding until people began to wonder, `Is there a boundary?' "
John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio, which owns 1,200 stations, testified before a congressional committee on a proposal to tighten broadcast standards Thursday, a day after the company issued a "zero tolerance" policy on indecent content.
The policy says any employee accused by the FCC of violating indecency rules will be suspended, and contracts with on-air performers will be modified to make disc jockeys financially liable "if they utter indecent material on the air," according to a statement from Clear Channel, which is based in San Antonio.
Viacom, parent company of Infinity Broadcasting, which operates 185 radio stations nationwide and syndicates Stern's show, also has reportedly tightened its rules on sexually explicit content. Viacom also owns CBS, which broadcast the Super Bowl earlier this month, and MTV, which produced the halftime show.
The company took no immediate action against Stern, whose show does not air in Houston. On Thursday, Stern blamed a conservative backlash against the Super Bowl halftime show for Clear Channel's decision.
Clear Channel didn't mention the Super Bowl, saying instead that Stern's interview with Rick Salomon, the man having sex with hotel heiress and reality TV star Paris Hilton in a video widely distributed on the Internet, crossed the line with its sexual and racial references.
Just a day earlier, Clear Channel had fired Florida disc jockey "Bubba the Love Sponge" for airing sexually explicit material.
But pushing boundaries is what talk radio is all about. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh lambasting gay marriage or Dan Patrick protesting MTV from his perch at KSEV in Houston, the point is to get people listening and talking back.
"I'm, in a sense, really surprised about Clear Channel," said Beth Olson, associate professor of communications at the University of Houston. "In the past, having personalities that generated attention and fines from the FCC was a way to increase their ratings, and they were quite happy to pay the fines."
In the post-Super Bowl XXXVIII world, however, people are less inclined to ignore offending messages. "I think Clear Channel is reacting to that," Olson said. "I don't know that Howard's content has changed significantly from last week to this week, but now it's not acceptable."
Still, radio isn't avoiding all risk. Clear Channel may have dumped Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge, but it recently added controversial radio jock Michael Savage to its lineup at KPRC in Houston.
MSNBC fired Savage last summer after he referred to a caller to his weekend cable TV show as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die."
Ken Charles, Clear Channel regional vice president of programming for Houston, did not return calls from the Chronicle on Thursday.
And many local on-air personalities were reluctant to weigh in on the issue publicly.
KLOL-FM's Walton was talking, and he said the heightened scrutiny may work.
He's no stranger to controversy. His show, which airs on one of Clear Channel's eight Houston stations, sparked outrage last year when he and Johnson complained about bicyclists and jokingly offered to run one over. They apologized, and the station ran a number of public service announcements about bicycle safety.
"We probably should pay a little more attention to policing ourselves," he said. "As the years have gone by, it has been more about doing whatever you have to to get the ratings, and we'll worry about that later."
Harrison, of Talkers magazine, says there's plenty to worry about right now in the world of talk radio. "My fear is the regulation of free speech," he said.
But the First Amendment doesn't guarantee the right to say anything you want on the radio or television, said Patrick, KSEV manager and on-air personality. "It guarantees you the right to go down to the public square and voice your opinion."
Patrick's personal definition of what's acceptable for the airwaves is simple: "We do not talk about or use language that we would not use in someone's living room or someone's office," he said. "If radio and television stations would just keep that in mind, we'd clean up the airwaves pretty quickly."
But Patrick works in AM radio, which he noted tends to draw a conservative and Christian audience. FM radio, in contrast, is often aimed at a young, male audience, targeted with sexual innuendo and low-brow humor.
He suggests the corporate crackdown is driven by threats to the bottom line.
Patrick said he suggested to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay two weeks ago that taking away a station's license would quickly cause other stations to rein in on-air personnel. "Depending on the city, a television or radio station can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars," he said. "You take away a license, this will end in a moment."
FCC Chairman Michael Powell subsequently suggested that possibility and soon after, the radio station chains began taking action.
HAH! They cite these examples of "pushing boundaries" with a straight face, as if Rush and Patrick were the problem! Bias, anyone?
Making these radio folks pay their own fines seems fair to me
Threats but I'll bet there's more. I think the so-called "shock-jocks" have become very boring. I'll bet their audience numbers aren't there anymore --- there are so many times you can use the f word, and talk of certain acts, but after awile it all isn't shocking -- it's dull.
And ratings. Stern quit being shocking years ago, it was just the same stuff over and over and I would bet the audiences moved on for the most part.
I agree.
I got my Class A broadcast license just as the licensing requirements for on-air people were dropped......yet still at a time when the on air people were held accountable for what they said on air.
It's interesting to note that the "shock jock" wave started shortly after the on air personalities no longer had to adhere to the standards the stations did.
That definitely would get station management's attention.
I admit I don't know all the ins and out of radio broadcasting .. and I'm not saying that they can't be shock jocks
But how about some of these radio folks take responsibility for their OWN actions??
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