• by Wayne Friedman , February 4, 2008

Competing broadcast networks have joined forces--at least when it comes to battling the Federal Communications Commission on the subject of indecent programming.

ABC and CBS have asked the Supreme Court not to review a 2007 lower court decision that comes down hard on the FCC, in regard to the agency's decisions concerning profanity and indecent programming.

The case: the FCC had fined Fox for profanities spoken by Nicole Richie and Cher in separate broadcasts of the "Billboard Music Awards" show in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

This comes just days after ABC was slapped with a recently proposed $1.4 million fine by FCC regarding a brief nudity scene in an "NYPD Blue" episode that aired on the network in February 2003.

NBC is filing its own complaint, asking the High Court not to review last year's decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The court said the FCC failed to provide a good enough reason for reversing its policy of isolated and fleeting expletives.

The FCC believes that fleeting expletives should be subject to punishment because it is protecting children from an initial hit of those words.

If the Supreme Court doesn't take the case, the FCC would still need to justify its decision to the Second Court. If not, it would need to reverse its decision on fleeting expletives.

The Second Court said the FCC is inconsistent. The court wonders, for example, why the FCC did not find the fleeting expletives in the beginning scene of "Saving Private Ryan" indecent.