Posted on 08/20/2002 7:01:25 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:08:12 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Opie (left) and Anthony had their live show pulled yesterday after their St. Pat's sexcapade led to three arrests and outrage.
August 20, 2002 -- "Opie and Anthony's" live radio show was yanked off the air yesterday as WNEW-FM's owner fretted over the shock jocks' promotion of a sex stunt in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They hit the trifecta with this one incident and they deserve to have their license revoked, with prejudice!
Try again. John Rocker had his opinion published in a print magazine. This couple desecrated a sacred place during religious services on a holy day AND the play by play was simultaneously broadcast live on the radio. There is a difference one could drive a truck through.
At some point the American public is required to say, unequivically, that certain behavior is unacceptable. To abdicate that responsibility is to further rend the tattered fabric of our society.The only thing unacceptable was doing it in public. The Puritans who want the station taken off the air are "the usual suspects". For the most part, these modern day Comstocks won't rest until any entertainment they consider "indecent" is banned by law. In that respect they are nothing but statists, as bad as any liberal foaming at the mouth about "hate speech".
Like others who would subordinate individual liberty to the whims of those who can cajole a majority into supporting their personal prejudices, they need to be opposed by any means neccesary.
-Eric
You're not missing anything. Opie & Anthony are just the latest in a long, long line of Howard Stern ripoffs. The only difference is that they decided to take Howard's schtick and follow a much lower road. Their entire act consists of them trying to find more and more ways to truly outrage the general public and thus garner more and more attention for themselves.
This has to be at least the fourth time they've been suspended by WNEW since getting the job there (few radio personalities anywhere would still be employed if they screwed up after a single suspension), and this time I think they may truly have gone too far. They make money for Infinity, but if Infinity loses their license for that station, that'll cause the company a loss somewhere in the NINE-DIGIT range. Ninety-eight percent of a radio station's value is wrapped up in its license. You lose that, and you are completely wiped out instantaneously. You can't sell the license to someone else; the FCC just takes it. All you can do is sell the office furniture and studio equipment and hope you can maybe recoup a few hundred thousand bucks or so from that.
And while O&A make money for the company, I don't think they make THAT much money. When their antics start causing a daily threat to the station's license, they will be fired.
I do believe you're getting it.
Look above your head. There should be a lit bulb up there...
It already IS banned by law, and has been since the earliest days of radio. The people you so smugly sneer at are merely following the established procedures to have the law enforced. Their actions are no different from when someone calls 911 when they see a murder taking place.
These FCC rules have been around for approximately 80 years, and the system has worked just fine all along. Besides, "hate speech" isn't illegal. There are all sorts of radio stations out there - some AM/FM, but mostly shortwave - that allocate much or all of their airtime to hardcore white power programming. And they're all licensed by the FCC. As long as they don't incite riots or anything, they're safe.
The phrase "The airwaves belong to the public" was coined by govenment officials because they needed a way to control the content of broadcast media.
No it wasn't. The concept of the "public airwaves" goes back to roughly the early 1920s, when everybody and his brother were purchasing transmitters and filling up the broadcast band to the point that it was all becoming pure noise (like the muddle of signals you get when you tune your AM radio around 1300-1500 KHz at night) because everyone was transmitting over everybody else. So the precursor to the FCC stepped in and instituted a band plan and licenscing scheme so that commercial radio could do what it was meant to do: actually deliver comprehendable signals to the public. The technology of the time was such that there was really little other solution to the problem.
In fact, the technology has indeed kept broadcast radio holed up in its little amount of spectrum almost until today. Only in the last 5-10 years have new ways been invented (digital radio, spread spectrum, Internet radio, satellite radio, etc) that can truly expand the number of available radio "channels" by leaps and bounds. And capitalism being what it is, most of these new technologies are being marginalized while the National Association of Broadcasters - arguably the single most effective lobbying organization in the country - fights them tooth and nail. They don't want any new competition, and they don't want to have to shell out cash for new transmitter facilities.
In the end, the radio stations themselves are the main reason the public airwaves are so bland. They want it that way. The FCC couldn't care less.
Alas, as demonstrated by this story and some in their response, common decency appears to have gone the way of common sense.
I just sent my e-mail to Michael Powell, head of the FCC (and Colin Powell's son). His address is:
mpowell@fcc.gov
In it, I demanded that they enforce their regulations against the broadcasting of obscenity and indecency.
I suggest that like-minded people do the same.
In it, I demanded that they enforce their regulations against the broadcasting of obscenity and indecency.The concept of "indecency" has no place in law.
-Eric
It already IS banned by law, and has been since the earliest days of radio. The people you so smugly sneer at are merely following the established procedures to have the law enforced. Their actions are no different from when someone calls 911 when they see a murder taking place.Have you ever listened to the show? They don't use the "F-word", for example, instead saying "the F-word", literally. Trust me, the station and the syndication company have lawyers that review the letter of the law. They skirt it the way Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh do.
By the way, did you know that Rush Limbaugh defends Howard Stern's right to broadcast what he does? Ever wonder why? Part of it is principle to be sure, but part is knowing that if the moralizers ever take down Stern, he'll be targetted next.
By the way, the laws haven't been the same "since the earliest days of radio". They were greatly loosened in the early 80s. I'd say they were "liberalized", but it doesn't seem like the right word to use when the driving force behind it was Ronald Reagan's FCC appointees.
The gun grabbers, PC nuts, WoD freaks, the Prohibitionists of the early 20th century, and the censorship zealots of the late 19th all "followed the established procedures". That doesn't mean their causes were right or they shouldn't have been (or be) opposed as cranks.
-Eric
What, exactly, does Limbaugh do that can be compared with Stern or Opie & Anthony?
They skirt it the way Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh do.Annoys people on purpose. Limbaugh annoys humorless liberals, Howard and O&A annoy humorless prudes.What, exactly, does Limbaugh do that can be compared with Stern or Opie & Anthony?
More to your point, if you don't think Rush ever said anything that Wildmon et al would consider "indecent", recall the whole Lewinsky matter.
-Eric
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