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Lawmakers Poised to OK Indecency Bill

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Times Staff Writer

Signaling a more expensive era of broadcast decency ahead, congressional leaders have agreed on legislation that would dramatically increase maximum fines for radio and TV stations that violate Federal Communications Commission regulations.

The House is expected to approve a Senate bill Wednesday that includes a tenfold increase in indecency fines to a maximum of $325,000 for each violation. The bill, called the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, unanimously passed the Senate last month.

President Bush is expected to sign the legislation, ending a more than two-year quest by lawmakers and family groups for tougher indecency penalties after Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” on CBS during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

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“This is a victory for children and families,” Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), the sponsor of the Senate bill, said in a statement Friday.

Broadcasters have been expecting Congress to increase the penalties. But enactment of the larger fines still would have a “huge impact” on over-the-air programming, with radio and television stations having to consider putting live news and sports events on delay to avoid inadvertent incidents, said one industry executive who requested anonymity.

The larger fines also would increase the stakes in a legal battle that began in April between the broadcast TV networks and the FCC. Showing rare unity, the networks and their affiliates challenged the constitutionality of FCC rulings in March that found the use of the “F-word” and the “S-word” indecent.

“It’s already caused a chilling effect,” the executive said of the FCC’s tougher enforcement. “It’s going to be even more so, because now we’re looking at numbers that are really big.”

The record indecency fine was handed down in March, when 111 CBS affiliates were each fined the current maximum of $32,500 for a simulated orgy scene on the series “Without a Trace.” The total penalty of $3.6 million has since been cut to $3.3 million. Under the FCC’s new rules, the fines could have been as much as $36 million.

Officials with CBS Corp. and Fox Broadcasting Co. declined to comment. Executives from NBC, ABC and Clear Channel Radio could not be reached.

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Douglas Gomery, a professor of media studies at the University of Maryland, said the fines still weren’t large enough to deter multibillion-dollar media companies in competition for viewers with edgier cable and satellite programming.

“I think they’ll see it as the cost of doing business,” he said of the broadcasters.

The House had sought even stronger penalties than the Senate: a maximum fine of $500,000 for each violation and a license revocation hearing after three offenses by a broadcaster. Legislation with those provisions overwhelmingly passed the House last year.

But rather than risk a fight in the Senate to push those tougher penalties into law, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) decided to simply take up the Senate bill. It will be considered Tuesday and voted on Wednesday under special rules generally reserved for noncontroversial legislation.

Those rules require a two-thirds majority, but the Senate bill is expected to pass overwhelmingly, said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the main sponsor of the House legislation.

With Congress juggling so many other contentious issues, including immigration and major telecommunications legislation, House leaders opted to avoid the potential delays of crafting a compromise with the Senate, he said.

The Parents Television Council, whose members have sent thousands of indecency complaints to the FCC in recent years, was pleased that larger fines probably would soon be in place.

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“Certainly the House bill was a more comprehensive bill and dealt with more things,” said Dan Isett, the group’s director of corporate and government affairs. But the Senate bill accomplishes an important goal, he said: making the indecency fines “meaningful.”

The push for stronger penalties began in early 2004, after Jackson’s breast was briefly exposed during a Super Bowl halftime performance that was broadcast by CBS.

Outraged viewers flooded the FCC with complaints -- an average of 13 calls a minute at their height.

Lawmakers took to the floor of Congress to denounce the incident and quickly convened hearings to impose tougher penalties for indecency violations. The FCC responded with a fine of $27,500 (the maximum at the time) against 20 CBS-owned stations, for a total of $550,000.

In June 2004, the Senate voted 99 to 1 for a bill by Brownback with a similar tenfold increase as part of defense legislation, but the indecency provisions were later dropped.

Brownback introduced his bill again in January 2005, but it languished because Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) wanted to give broadcasters a chance to promote filtering technology as an alternative for parents.

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Last month, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) decided to bypass Stevens’ committee. The bill was unanimously approved by the full Senate.

The House voted 389 to 38 in early 2005 for its tougher indecency bill. Next week, supporters will need just 290 votes to pass the Senate bill, Upton said.

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