Networks sue FCC over curbs on indecency

Broadcast TV's bid to be even more risqué

Broadcast TV has had enough and won't take it anymore. It's lost too many viewers to cable shows like "The Sopranos" and appears eager to air more sex, violence, and obscenities. So last week, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC sued the Federal Communications Commission over its curbs on indecency.

Specifically, the suit, joined by many local stations, challenges a March 15 FCC ruling that found some broadcasts of ABC's drama "NYPD Blue," the CBS News program "The Early Show," and "Billboard Music Awards" on FOX to contain obscenities. But behind this suit is a worry that the increasingly tough rulings by the Federal Communications Commission might result in fines that could really cut into TV stations' profits. And they fear the FCC might start yanking the licenses of errant broadcasters.

The suit in essence challenges decades of FCC authority over risqué content, the kind the agency defines in general as: "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory references."

For broadcast TV, such wording is too vague and FCC enforcement is too arbitrary. They want either undebatable rules on taboos, or the preferred option, no federal standards at all. They say consumers now have many more competing and unregulated media - the latest: iPod casting - to continue subjecting broadcast TV (and land radio) to federal smut rules that erode the First Amendment.