‘Slim Shady’ Fine Rescinded

A menacing cloud that radio broadcasters saw looming over their industry--in the form of stricter FCC enforcement on the airwaves--seems to be dissipating, now that the agency has rescinded a fine it levied last year against a radio station it accused of broadcasting indecent material.

In June, the Federal Communications Commission fined KKMG-FM, a Top 40 station in Colorado Springs, Colo., $7,000 for playing “The Real Slim Shady” by rapper Eminem--even though it was a “clean” version of the raunchy album cut and lacked the explicit sexual language. The action sent a chill through the industry; if a song edited specifically for radio airplay wasn’t safe, then what was?

But last week the agency’s enforcement bureau reversed itself, saying the sexual references in the song were oblique and didn’t violate its standards for indecency.

“Obviously we’re real happy about it,” KKMG general manager Brenda Goodrich said. “It’s not only a victory for us, but for radio stations around the country. This would have set a huge precedent.”

The FCC guidelines--spelled out, with examples, on the agency’s Web site--prohibit obscene content and restrict what it defines as indecent: that is, messages containing “sexual or excretory references” in terms “patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.”

Typically what got stations fined under those rules were lewd comments made by disc jockeys or guests or language in a raunchy novelty song sneaked on the air once or twice. For example, at the same time it rescinded the “Slim Shady” fine, the FCC’s enforcement bureau upheld its $14,000 fine against WKQX-FM in Chicago for a segment in which its DJ, Mancow, interviewed a porn actress and other women about sexual practices.

But an indecency ruling and a fine for playing a Top 10 song aired continually on stations nationwide? That action dismayed broadcasters.

“If they fine us, how are they not going to fine every station in the country that’s playing it?” Goodrich asked.

In addition, Goodrich said she feared the “Slim Shady” ruling would not only have constricted what broadcasters were already playing but would even have made songwriters and performers think twice about what they wrote or recorded.

That sentiment was shared by Hilary Rosen, president and chief executive of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, who said at the time that the case seemed to be a threat to artistic expression and freedom of speech and that the ruling “almost appears to be a value judgment on the music.”

A KKMG listener objected to the lyrics in July 2000 and complained to the FCC. After an investigation, it levied the fine the following June.

In its rebuttal, Citadel Communications, KKMG’s Las Vegas-based parent company, contended that the sexual references in the song “are intended merely to satirize and parody popular culture and not to titillate, shock or pander to listeners.” Upon reviewing the case further, the FCC agreed, saying that the sexual references in the edited version “are not expressed in terms sufficiently explicit or graphic enough to be found patently offensive,” the legal threshold for something to be deemed indecent.

But another case from last summer that troubled broadcasters remains on the books. A public radio station in Portland, Ore., was fined $7,000 for playing a feminist rapper’s song using the suggestive and sexist language of other hip-hop tunes to criticize their misogyny. The FCC said the political message was irrelevant, while the shocking language merited a $7,000 fine for indecency. The station, KBOO-FM, appealed the fine, and the case is still pending.

Even though KKMG was vindicated, Goodrich said the “Slim Shady” experience has made station officials more wary about the songs they play. And the ruling has caused controversy even within the FCC, with Commissioner Michael J. Copps saying that the agency’s enforcement bureau should have let the case go forward.

“It’s an important decision with an element of controversy,” Copps said, and thus should have been discussed by him and the other members of the five-person commission that gives the agency its name and acts as its final arbiter.

In addition, Copps said the FCC makes it too hard on people who want to complain about vulgarities on the air. To investigate, the agency requires a tape or transcript of the offending broadcast. So Copps suggested recently that radio stations ought to record their broadcasts and save them.

“Not to send them to Big Brother government in Washington so we can pore over them,” he said, but so the recordings can be used to quickly and easily verify or debunk citizen complaints about indecency on the airwaves. “I don’t think that’s intrusive. Using the public airwaves is a privilege, and with privileges come responsibilities.”

*

Disney Chairman Michael Eisner promised Copps that the radio stations of its ABC subsidiary would record their broadcasts and archive the tapes for two months.

“They get the good corporate citizenship award for December,” Copps said. In fact, ABC spokeswoman Julie Hoover said the company’s “radio stations for many, many years--probably for 20 years--had been keeping tapes of their broadcasts. For a number of the stations, 60 days will be the minimum, and they will continue to keep tapes for longer than that.”

Such a policy seems to be the industry exception, however. “We have not formally considered the issue of recording broadcasts, and at this time we have no plans to do so,” said Kate Healey, director of media and investor relations at the Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp., owner of WKQX-FM in Chicago. Regarding the FCC’s Mancow decision, Healy would say only that “we’re evaluating our options.”

Clear Channel Communications, the nation’s largest radio conglomerate, with almost 1,200 stations, does not record its broadcasts, “nor do we plan to,” said spokeswoman Pam Taylor.

Copps said he hopes the public becomes concerned enough about keeping the airwaves clean to encourage more broadcasters to start recording themselves and, in so doing, better police themselves. But he added that such an effort ought to start at the FCC.

“If we could get all the commissioners’ attention on this, and speaking out on this,” he said, “that would be a huge leap forward.”