13 FOX affiliates were fined today $7000 each because they aired an episode of FOX’s Married by America, in 2003, that contained 10.5 seconds pixilated boobies and ass! Yes, pixilated indecency, a new one courtesy of the ever watchful FCC! And it only took them 5 years to reach a decision, but they had to, the statue of limitations on indecency is 5 years!
According to the FCC merely pixilating the special areas of the female body was not sufficient to keep them from being patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards. Operative words being “community standards” which are used in the more raunchy pornography cases and which differ from place to place (hence why such cases are tried in conservative areas to have a bigger chance of scoring a conviction).
Originally the FCC fined 169 FOX stations but then wound up watering down their punishment to just a handful of tv stations that were the only ones to receive complaints from viewers. WTVT in Tampa, Florida
SunbeamTV, owners of WSVN, paid the fine but since they received no complaints are now asking for a refund:
Respondents raise multiple arguments, each of which is discussed below. Generally, they
assert that the subject episode of “Married By America†is not actionably indecent under the
Commission’s prevailing indecency standard.
One respondent, Sunbeam Television Corporation, licensee of Station WSVN(TV), Miami, Florida, paid its
forfeiture in full, subject to the outcome of the Commission’s final action with respect to the FOX/Affiliates
Consolidated Response
In response to the NAL, Sunbeam, licensee of Station WSVN(TV), Miami, Florida, tendered
a check made payable to the Commission in the amount of $7,000, subject to final agency action with
respect to the FOX/Affiliates Consolidated Response. Having determined that the NAL should be
canceled as to all licensees against which no specific complaint was filed, including Sunbeam, Sunbeam
may file appropriate documents requesting a refund of the amount it tendered
Meanwhile, in a state far far away outraged “family” organizations heard the news and had a collective orgasm.
FCC Forfeiture Order /PDF/
WSJ.com -
FCC Rejects Appeal by Fox on Reality-TV Indecency Complaint
Reuters-
Thirteen Fox stations fined over 2003 reality show
BroadcastingCable.com -
FCC Fines 13 Fox Stations for 2003 Episode of Married by America - 2/22/2008
Tampa Bay Business Journal -
‘Married By America’ broadcast lands fine on WTVT
Castro Resigns.
CBS4.comNBC6.netCBS4.com Reports it firstIt’s 03:29am and CBs4.com is the only local station site reporting Castro’s resignation as Cuba’s president. The time stamp on their report is 3:18am right now
Update: actually it’s NBC6.net reporting the news online first - published 03:04am as per their article date.
Not bad, someone at a forum I was reading posted a thread at 02:45am linking to a web site from Ghana. 7 has nothing online. 10 has a small link courtesy of CNN partnership.
Surprisingly there is no frenzy yet on TV, everyone has infomercials on!
Update: Insider says CBS4.com originally posted the Castro news at 02:57am, and had a TV report 93 minutes later at 4:30am.