• by David Kaplan , January 26, 2005

Is outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell going soft as he ends his four-year tenure in March? That's the charge of the Parents Television Council, which is in quite a snit over an FCC order issued Tuesday, denying a total of 36 complaints alleging that various television station licensees had aired indecent material during a variety of programs.

The PTC is a Hollywood, Calif.-based organization headed by conservative pundit L. Brent Bozell III.

The complaints had alleged that various programs that aired between October 29, 2001 and February 11, 2004 contained segments of a sexually explicit nature or used indecent or profane language. The FCC concluded that, in context, none of the segments were patently offensive under contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, and thus not indecent. The Commission also found that the material was not profane, in context. In a statement issued immediately after the rulings, the PTC denounced the FCC for being too lenient in the face of what the group considers gross perversity.

"In three recent indecency rulings, FCC Chairman Michael Powell's Commission has sanctioned the following content during the so-called family hour: a high school teacher refers to one of his students as 'a big d---'; criminals hire a prostitute to have sex with a horse; and jokes about pedophilia and Michael Jackson's penis," said Tim Winter, executive director of the PTC. "By what community standard is it not patently offensive during the family hour to broadcast these things?"

In November, the PTC submitted advertisements to USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, which contained dialog from the "prostitute/horse episode" of the TV series "Keen Eddie," which has aired on Bravo and centers around a gruff NYPD cop who tracks a case to Great Britain (the series' genteel tagline: "New York cop. Kicking London arse.").

All of the newspapers rejected the ads as "too explicit," Winter said, adding that the periodicals argued the excerpts from the shows were "not acceptable for family viewing."

"The FCC had 36 individual opportunities to provide clarity and direction--both to families and to broadcasters, but they chose not to do so," Winter continued. "Instead, the FCC abandoned its public interest responsibility by lumping all 36 complaints into one great mish-mash of imprecision. Furthermore, it took the FCC over three years to rule on at least one complaint, and almost two years to rule on several others. That's unacceptable. The FCC should be able to determine and rule within six months time whether a broadcaster has crossed the line."

In addition to an implied "good riddance" for Powell, the PTC is recommending that President Bush nominate FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin, who along with fellow Commissioner Michael Copps, dissented with the FCC's ruling on the 36 denials.