All that concern about Americans losing their TV signal when the government-mandated switch from analog to digital takes effect in February? Kinda not worth worrying about! “Nielsen Media Research now says that as of July, just 9.3% of U.S. TV households are completely unprepared for the changeover to digital TV signals come next February. This is down from a 10.5% number in January.” Way to get on the ball, rural America.
Seven hundred years later, the matter of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl nipple may finally be put to rest. And CBS won’t be paying for it. A federal appeals court has shot down the FCC’s $550,000 fine against the network for its part in Nipplegate, when, during the 2004 football halftime show, Justin Timberlake revealed to 90 million people that Jackson has at least one of something that everybody has two of. The three-judge panel declared the FCC “deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so ‘pervasive as to amount to “shock treatment” for the audience.’” Also: That nine-sixteenths of one second of bare breast, despite being TiVo-able and replayed endlessly by horny 13-year-olds, wasn’t such a big deal.
FCC chairman Kevin Martin will back the merger of satellite radio operators XM and Sirius, and only because Mel Karmazin & Co. agreed to a number of promises that’ll keep subscriber fees from skyrocketing once the two services join, and open up the technology to all manufacturers.
At least two of the FCC’s other four commissioners must agree with Martin to push the deal through.
But ya know who probably wouldn’t side with Martin? Barack Obama. In a new interview with Broadcasting & Cable, the senator, when asked about the merger, said that he’s “waiting for final resolution by the regulatory agencies and would want to ensure that the merger does not give the new firm excessive market power or unduly limit the choices consumers have for satellite-radio content.”
Given the concessions XM and Sirius are supposedly willing to make to push the merger through, it might sound like Obama could be on their side. But then he’s got this to say about Mr. Martin and, in particular, his goal to dismantle media ownership regulations: CONTINUED »
The FCC mandate that television broadcasters turn off analog signals and fully switch to digital delivery is this year’s Y2K: The industry, from networks to big box retailers hoping to move 50-inch plasma screens, has consumers in a frenzy.
Best Buy and Circuit City will be more than happy to remind Americans that 9.4 percent of them are considered “Completely Unready,” and will lose their ability to get a signal beginning Feb. 17, 2009, when the big switch – to free up some of the broadcast spectrum to resell it with much higher licensing fees to other operators – is made.
Television operators, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to make sure customers are prepared for the switch, trying to school them on whether their old analog sets will need converters, or whether their new flat screens are A-OK for February’s messiah. (One network in Las Vegas even flipped the switch early to tell customers whether they’d be left behind or not.)
But what happens when those television operators, like software salesmen during Y2K, completely lie to you about your risks? CONTINUED »
The mainstream media may have gone out of their way to ignore the New York Times‘ blockbuster article exposing biased military analysts being used by cable news and newspaper op-ed pages, but at least two House reps wants answers. From the FCC. CONTINUED »
Because this is the television industry’s idea of fun, Las Vegas’ KVBC decided to show viewers what it’ll be like on Feb. 17, 2009, the veritable Y2K of the decade, when broadcasters follow FCC mandate and eliminate analog broadcasts. So for each of the channel’s seven daily newscasts, they “stopped feeding its normal programming into its studio-to-transmitter link and instead ran a brief clip of simulated static,” because THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE TV TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU. “The simulated blackouts, which included footage of an actual cable being pulled, began with Friday’s 5 a.m. newscast. KVBC anchors explained to viewers that those who could still see them after they “pulled the plug” have nothing to worry about come February 2009—those who got only white snow, however, need to act now to make their sets DTV-ready.”
What did it look like? CONTINUED »
Much to Harvey Levin’s glee (chagrin?), the FCC has labeled his syndicated half hour of celebrities walking to and from Starbucks, the valet guy, and Kitson as a proper news program. Why is that even a big deal? Because if it weren’t news, then political candidates could demand “equal access” opportunities if TMZ gave airtime to a competing hopeful. Levin’s show qualified as “a bona fide newscast because it reports news of some area of current events in a manner similar to more traditional newscasts.” God bless American, where Lindsay Lohan smoking a cigarette is news.
“The dirty little secret about Rupert Murdoch’s play to buy another New York media property in addition to the ones he already owns is that there’s little anybody can do to stop him,” argues the Hollywood Reporter’s Brooks Boliek.
Sad, but true. Just as Donald Trump’s Trump Soho swatted away critics by beginning physical construction on his downtown condo-hotel, making the project inevitable, Murdoch has shaped the debate about his purchase of Newsday as a “when” debate, not an “if.”
And even as Murdoch faces off against New York foe Mort Zuckerman for control of Newsday, there’s actually little the Federal Communications Commission could actually do to stop Murdoch from snapping up the paper if Tribune gives the OK.
How come? CONTINUED »
The U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t see eye to eye with News Corp. over that little $56,000 indecency fine the FCC levied against it for 2003’s Married by America “thrusting of a male stripper’s crotch into a woman’s face.” So it’s suing. [THR]
Writing an article about television censorship and the use of naughty words, Washington Post scribe Lisa de Moraes finds herself in the unusual position of discussing what, exactly, the FCC has such a problem with — while her own newspaper won’t let her use certain words (or, actually, letters) to describe the situation. Awkward!
On the April 10 episode of “30 Rock,” the staff of the late-night show “TGS” has become obsessed with a new reality hit called “MIL[letter that's been deemed too naughty for The Washington Post when it follows M, I and L] Island.”
For the uninitiated: MIL[WaPo Scarlet Letter] stands for Mothers I’d Like to [have sex with].
In this episode of “30 Rock” — which NBC says also is titled “MIL[WaPo Banned Letter] Island” — network bigwig Jack (Alec Baldwin) is watching the riveting finale of this reality-series hit, pitting the final two contestants, Debra vs. Deborah, when he is blindsided by a blind item in a newspaper gossip column. In it, a network staffer calls him a “Class A moron” and adds, “That guy can eat my poo.” [WaPo]
“F” = Not allowed
“Poo” = Totally kosher
Paying fines for indecency is so … indecent. So Fox isn’t paying the $91,000 fee the FCC threw at its affiliate stations for a 2003 episode of Married by America (remember that?) where whip cream got licked off strippers. It’s not that Fox can’t afford the cash; it’s the principle of the matter. Whip cream and strippers were essential to the storyline!
The FCC didn’t see it that way. CONTINUED »
F the police? F the FCC! [Silicon Alley Insider]
The Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether saying “fuck” on the air should earn a FCC fine. [AP]
Media consolidation critic Byron Dorgan, the Democratic senator from North Dakota, wants the FCC’s December decision to loosen ownership rules reversed. Says his statement: “When nearly half of the people in this country are told that in their cities and towns the media will get the green light to consolidate, they will not be happy.” Actually, so long as the cable company’s HBO OnDemand service stays online , customers will be happy. [Reuters]
Editorial Director
