CBS - FCC CLEARS TWO TV SHOWS CITED FOR INDECENCY

FCC CLEARS TWO TV SHOWS CITED FOR INDECENCY

Two television shows that the FCC had previously branded as indecent were given a clean bill of health Monday. The commission said that the use of the s-word during a broadcast of CBS's The Early Show was "neither indecent nor profane in this instance due to the fact that it occurred during news programming." The FCC also found that complaints about a brief scene in ABC's NYPD Blue depicting a teen orgy were "inadequate to trigger enforcement action," presumably because they did not come from anyone in the Central Time Zone, where the program airs at 9:00 p.m. -- i.e., outside the "safe harbor" period of 10:00-11:00 p.m. The FCC said that two other rulings involving "the use of offensive language by participants in 'The 2003 Billboard Music Awards' and 'The 2002 Billboard Music Awards' was indecent and profane. ... Hollywood continues to argue they (sic) should be able to say the f-word on television whenever they want. Today, the commission again disagrees."

07/11/2006