Panel I of a Hearing of the Subommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet: HR 3717, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
SUBJECT: H.R. 3717, THE BROADCAST DECENCY ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 2004
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE FRED UPTON (R-MI)
WITNESSES PANEL I:
PAUL TAGLIABUE, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE;
MEL KARMAZIN, PRESIDENT & CHIEF OPERATING, OFFICER, VIACOM, INC.;
PANEL II:
MICHAEL K. POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;
KATHLEEN Q. ABERNATHY, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;
MICHAEL J. COPPS, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;
KEVIN J. MARTIN, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION;
JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
LOCATION: 2123 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
BODY:
REP. EDWARD J. MARKEY (D-MA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much, and I thank you for holding this hearing today.
The legislation which you and I introduced has now drawn obviously considerable attention across the country and the co- sponsorship of so many of the members on this committee obviously is having a real impact in terms of the discussion which is taking place in the country. This hearing is going to make it possible for us to gain the testimony on the legislation which we have introduced. And it will also allow us to make some early determinations as to just where the level of fines should be, for violations of the law.
The public's airwaves are licensed to a relatively precious few who have the honor, the opportunity and the obligation to use them as trustees of the public interest. There are those licensees, however, who are not treating these licenses as a public trust, but as a mere corporate commodity and they air content replete with raunchy language, graphic violence and indecent fare. The Federal Communications Commission is charged with ensuring that licensees serve the public interest, and its stations do not air obscene, indecent or profane content in violation of the law and the commission rules.
The enforcement record of the Federal Communications Commission is not encouraging. In 2002 there were 14,000 complaints about some 389 different programs, yet the Federal Communications Commission issued only seven notices of apparent liability that year. Last year complaints skyrocketed to 240,000 for allegations about 375 different programs, yet last year the commission issued only three notices of apparent liability. And we heard testimony at our first hearing that thousands of complaints are never addressed, are languished to the point where essentially the Statute of Limitations has run out.
The Federal Communications Commission has many numerous tools to enforce these important policy requirements, including the ability to revoke a station license. Yet it is increasingly clear that the paltry fines the FCC assesses have become nothing more than a joke. They have become simply a cost of doing business for far too many licensees, particularly in the radio marketplace. Many stations regard the prospect of a fine as merely a potential slap on the wrist. Washing their mouths out with soap would have a greater deterrent effect than the few and the paltry fines that the Federal Communications Commission currently levies. ] The FCC's utter unwillingness to revoke licenses or to raise these issues during license renewal essentially means there's no real deterrent effect left. This is especially true of the multi-billion dollar media conglomerates who control a multitude of stations. What possible deterrent effects can $27,000 have on a company which reaps in $27 billion in annual revenues? We need to have a public discussion about the FCC's failure to use its enforcement and deterrent tools effectively, even in the most egregious cases, and what the FCC plans to do about this issue. Clearly, Congress will have to address these shortcomings at the FCC.
Second, we need to do a better job in educating parents about the tools they already may possess, can utilize to address the myriad concerns they raise with us about what is on TV and radio, and need the assistance of the industry in this area. Parents can use the TV rating system and the V-Chip which stems from legislation that I authored seven years ago. Today, the several million families that use the V-Chip like it, yet the vast majority of parents will only use it if they fully understand the rating system and how it works in conjunction with the chip and only if parents have bought a recent TV that has the chip in it.
The industry did a good job with much fanfare after the TV ratings system was finalized in doing public service announcements and other educational messages regarding the ratings. Yet those efforts have waned significantly in recent years. I believe that the industry should renew such efforts and also consider a number of other ideas. For instance, I believe that the icon that appears at the beginning of a show, such as TV 13, with a V and S or an L for violence, sex or language, should appear after each commercial break, that way channel surfers who land on that show during commercials will get a warning as the show resumes.
I also believe the industry should consider adding a voiceover when the ratings appear. If dad or mom is in the kitchen, out of the room or distracted reading a newspaper, they may not see the icon when it appears. A voiceover would help parents hear the rating as the show begins and prompt them to change the channel and protect their children from inappropriate programming. With respect to cable programming, we need to explore ways in which we can educate parents and make more useful the provisions of the Cable Act of 1992, that permit any cable subscriber to request a blocking mechanism to block out any cable channel parents find objectionable.
If a family buys the expanded tier of basic cable service, but does not want MTV in their house, they can request equipment from their cable operator that effectively blocks out MTV. This is an option that many subscribers do not know they have and we have to ensure that all avenues are explored to improve the effectiveness of this provision so that the millions of parents who may want cable in their house, but not some of these offensive channels, can, in fact, just disconnect those offensive channels. Clearly many broadcasters need to clean up their act. Parents are increasingly frustrated and have every right to be angry at both certain licensees with a history of repeated violations as well as with the Federal Communications Commission itself.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this timely hearing, I think it really is an important discussion the American people want us to have.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
REP. MARKEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Obviously MTV has its standards and CBS has its standards.
The NFL, CBS that day was targeting an audience from age 8 to 80, which is not exactly the strategy of MTV. Is there a-let me ask this question, if you eliminate the first half, if you eliminate the second half, you eliminate the wardrobe malfunction, and all your left with is that halftime show with the below the belt activity you just referred to, the racy language that you referred to. Would that show, in your opinion, merit a G rating?
MR. KARMAZIN: Okay, so let me answer that question. I think that the commissioner said that all of his meetings and what he mentioned, I believe, in his testimony was 18 to 80 -- 18 to 80 was what was there. I would --
REP. MARKEY: But realistically it's 8 to 80. Every --
MR. KARMAZIN: Well, I think there's an audience there for 4- year-olds. So, I mean, I'm not trying to debate the audience of the Super Bowl. If everybody --
REP. MARKEY: I've seen every kid with a pair of shoulder pads from age 8 on is sitting there all day --
MR. KARMAZIN: So let me tell you that from my point of view, all the artists that were selected to perform-the artists that were selected to perform were very, very popular mainstream artists: Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, P. Diddy, Kid Rock, Nelly. So let's start with the artists. The songs that they played-the songs that were featured are some of the most popular songs of today. And, by the way, the versions that were done were the clean versions of those songs, songs that were played on thousands of radio stations, songs that were performed on the Teen Choice Awards, shows --
REP. MARKEY: But would you give it a G rating?
MR. KARMAZIN: Well, I don't know whether it-I'm not in the-I don't know if it was G or PG. I'm suggesting that there were three-let me give you --
REP. MARKEY: But do you think the language in those songs was appropriate for an audience 8 to 80? That's all I'm asking.
MR. KARMAZIN: I don't-that's a broad spectrum of the audience, Congressman, of-there's very little that's appropriate for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, and I'm saying that the lyrics were scrubbed, they were looked at, they were deemed to be appropriate.
Now, it's Monday morning. You know how you look at a football game and you sort of Monday morning quarterback it and you say, you know, should we have gone for that play? Certainly to do it over again, as the commissioner said, to do it over again, I would have much preferred the NFL show to be different than what appeared at halftime.
REP. MARKEY: If I may, I just-you did third quarter quarterbacking, looking at the halftime show. Would you have, in retrospect, even leaving out the wardrobe malfunction, have had the lyrics, the other conduct beyond the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake episode?
MR. TAGLIABUE: When I saw-during the early part of the halftime show, I was doing an interview on CBS radio. As soon as I started looking at the halftime show, I felt like I was kicked in the stomach. Why do I say that? I didn't like the choreography, I didn't like the suggestive grabbing of private parts, which the choreography lent itself to. I didn't like the way the flag was being treated. I believe absolutely in the First Amendment rights of do what you want to do with the flag if you're in a protest march someplace, but not for this audience, where we've got tens of thousands of troops watching the game around the world.
I had, as my personal guest at the game, the son of a good friend who was embedded with the First Marine Division. I had, as my personal guest at the game, General Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who brought with him a Patriot fan who was in Walter Reed Hospital, having lost his arm in Iraq. So there's a time and place for everything.
Friday morning, our people e-mailed the MTV people and said they didn't like the use of the flag. It didn't get resolved. That's party our fault, partly their fault. At this point I couldn't allocate the blame. We were both at fault. Our people and their people, in my judgment-in the way the flag was, in my judgment, trashed, and that setting at this time in the nation's history.
On the lyrics on Friday morning, our people e-mailed MTV and objected to some of the lyrics. Even, as Mr. Karmazin said, they were the watered down or scrubbed version. MTV's response was that they have been-those lyrics have been sung on Saturday Night Live. Give me a break. Saturday Night Live is not the Super Bowl audience. I'm sure he agrees with me. If the two of has had been there, maybe we would have made a different judgment. Unfortunately, we weren't there. Someone made a bad judgment that was as bad on my side as on the other side, because if you're objecting to lyrics and someone says they've been played on Saturday Night Live, it doesn't mean they go into the Super Bowl telecast, with 150 million people watching.
So those are the kinds of problems I have. I agree with Mr. Karmazin that talent-you can argue about the talent, but as I said in my statement, and as Mr. Green noted, we started the show with the Texas Southern and Houston University marching bands. Not too many MTV shows start with two college marching bands, one African-American school and one other, both local. That was something we all insisted upon and when we went to Janet Jackson, we were told her main song was going to be "Rhythm Nation." I've already commented on that.
We went to Kid Rock, who I was assured was fine because he was with our players, Duce Staley and another player, at Baghdad International entertaining the troops last August. Well, with the benefit of hindsight, that's not a great recommendation either because we know what Bob Hope used to do with the troops around the world and he didn't the same thing on broadcast television necessarily. I don't know what Kid Rock sung in Baghdad International but what he sung in our game, I didn't like and the way he conducted himself with the flag, I'm sure, is not the way he conducted himself with the troops in Baghdad International.
So judgments were made that were bad and it won't happen. And I don't think the judgments were even close calls.
MR. KARMAZIN: The sense of the flag issue, okay, was something that really troubled me because personally that's how I feel. In trying to get to the bottom of it, what we saw was during rehearsal-and, by the way, all of the tapes-fortunately, sometimes tapes hurt you and sometimes, it's good to have tapes. So we have everything on tapes, including all of the rehearsals and everything. What happened during rehearsal was that Kid Rock was wearing the American flag. He was singing a very patriotic song.
By the way, when he opened up-I was at the stadium-he opened up the jacket he was wearing to reveal a flag and, if you look at the tapes, as I've seen many times, you'll see that he was greeted with applause and he-but in rehearsal, he took his American flag-this is the MTV version, you know, so-Mr. Tagliabue was saying what his people had said to him and I'm telling you what we've investigated from our end. He took the American flag and threw it down, okay, and then somebody threw him a hat. That is what we thought was the objectionable part, that he threw the American flag down. And that was corrected so that when he took the poncho that he was wearing, he threw it to somebody else.
Again, the dance numbers-believe it or not, I don't dance that way. I am told that is the way people are dancing today, adults are dancing today, the younger demographic is doing today. I think that we have issues that the commissioner and I both share. We would have liked there not to be a controversy. The last thing, you know-I have a long-term association with the NFL long before I came to CBS-and the owners of the teams, the players of the teams, the league itself does not deserve to have all of this discussion be about a halftime show. So I would not pick the songs, I would have had Andy Williams.
REP. UPTON: Mr. Bilirakis.
REP. MARKEY: Can I just-I would just like to conclude by saying there was an MTV version on G-rated, supposedly G-rated, all ages program.
And that's the problem and it's something that in the future we're just going to have to deal with as a matter of policy that ensures that parents have a right, when there is a halftime show that is entertainment can be blocked out.
MR. KARMAZIN: I understand, Congressman.
REP. UPTON: Mr. Bilirakis.
REP. MARKEY: Can I just-I would just like to conclude by saying there was an MTV version on G-rated, supposedly G-rated, all ages program. And that's the problem and it's something that in the future we're just going to have to deal with as a matter of policy that ensures that parents have a right, when there is a halftime show that is entertainment can be blocked out.
MR. KARMAZIN: I understand, Congressman.