FCC chief wants bigger fines for on-air obscenity
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell asked Congress on Wednesday for a tenfold increase in the amount of fines the panel can levy against broadcasters for indecent or obscene programming.
Powell said the current maximum fine of $27,500 per incident was not enough to persuade broadcasters to watch their language.
“Some of these fines are peanuts,” Powell told a National Press Club luncheon. “They’re just a cost of doing business. That has to change.”
The two largest fines were $1.7 million against Infinity Broadcasting in 1995 to settle several cases against Howard Stern, and $357,000 in October against Infinity for a radio segment in which a couple was said to be having sex in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Powell’s comments came a day after he asked his fellow commissioners to overturn a much-criticized decision that an expletive uttered by the musician Bono on a network program was not obscene.
During last year’s NBC broadcast of the Golden Globes, the lead singer of the Irish rock group U2 said “this is really, really ... brilliant.”
The FCC’s enforcement bureau ruled in October that the comment was not indecent or obscene because Bono used the word as an adjective, not to describe a sexual act. “The performer used the word ... as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation,” the bureau said.
Powell circulated a proposed ruling to the four other commissioners on Tuesday. He needs the votes of two of the four to overturn the decision.
The enforcement bureau had rejected complaints from the Parents Television Council and more than 200 people, most of them associated with the conservative advocacy group, who accused dozens of television stations of violating restrictions on obscene broadcasts by airing portions of the awards program last January.
Under FCC rules, broadcasters cannot air obscene material at any time and cannot air indecent material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Some lawmakers have criticized the regulatory agency’s decision.