LAT: (Stevens broadcast rule) Indecency Proposal Getting Static From Cable

Indecency Proposal Getting Static From Cable
Executives worry about a senator's comments about applying broadcast standards to their industry.

By Sallie Hofmeister, Times Staff Writer


SAN FRANCISCO — Whether depicting intimate acts on HBO's "Sex and the City" or uttering a single four-letter expletive 162 times in one episode of Viacom Inc.-owned Comedy Central's "South Park," cable programmers have long sought to lure subscribers by dramatizing the very things that federal regulations prohibit on broadcast television.

But now, the creative innovation and sexual explicitness that have distinguished the cable business are placing it at the center of the nation's cultural hot zone: the debate over indecency.

As industry leaders gather here at the annual National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. conference this week, a possible crackdown on cable content is weighing heavily on their minds.

"It's scary," said one cable executive, referring to a proposal last month by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to apply broadcast indecency rules to cable. "We don't really know what he's thinking."...

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Historically, the cable industry has been immune to indecency regulations because it does not use the public airwaves, instead relying on private networks and requiring viewers to subscribe.....With cable and satellite TV now reaching 85% of all U.S. homes, the question in Washington has become why broadcasters alone should face such penalties. And that's bad news for the cable industry....


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-indecent5apr05,0,683035.story?coll=la-home-business

Yep.

Indecency is just so lucking fucrative.

(You can tell I've been watching Karaoke)


Sue

I pay good money to watch depictions of intimate acts and utterances of a single four-letter expletive 162 times. Don't they have bigger things to worry about?

everything should be like broad cast shows - written for the average 5th grader in parochial school. Graphic sex, violence and language is obviously popular - look at HBO which has practically turned into all Deadwood all the time. (I love Deadwood by the way - wish I had cable or satellite so I could watch it more often)