MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
When I saw this FCC Golden Globes story, it made me think about how things might be different in the Obama administration for the FCC- policing, censoring, fining, etc. Will he go all crazy liberal on us? Time will tell.. Wardrobe malfunctions galore, uncensored. Will the US pop culture become a cesspool of liberal decadence? Stay tuned.
LA Times
Breaking: FCC reviewing NBC's Golden Globes telecast
12:51 PM PT, Jan 14 2009
After receiving multiple complaints about NBC's Sunday telecast of the Golden Globes, the FCC said Wednesday that it is reviewing the program for possible violations of indecency rules.
Toward the end of the program, director Darren Aronofsky was caught on camera jokingly making an obscene gesture -- "flipping the bird," as it's commonly called -- at actor Mickey Rourke, who was onstage accepting an acting award for Aronofsky's film "The Wrestler." Rourke and other attendees also salted their speeches with occasional off-color language, some of which was bleeped by NBC censors.
Now the FCC, which regulates decency issues on the broadcast networks, has stepped into the fray. "We received 18 complaints about the Golden Globes telecast," FCC spokeswoman Edie Herman wrote in an e-mail to The Times, "and the commission is reviewing the matter."
An NBC spokeswoman confirmed that it aired the Aronofsky gesture on the live telecast. "On the West Coast, it went to black for two seconds," the spokeswoman e-mailed. "Beyond that, we have no further comment."
Aronofsky's publicist, Karen Samfilippo, said earlier this week that she had not heard anything from NBC about the matter.
The FCC has a mixed record with decency enforcement. The agency fined CBS $500,000 for airing Janet Jackson's notorious "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl. But a court overturned the fine last year.
ew.com
Barack Obama's new FCC chair: What's his pop culture agenda?
Jan 14, 2009, 04:29 PM | by Hollywood Insider
Categories: Current Affairs, Music, Radio, Television
During the presidential campaign, Republican operatives stirred up the base by suggesting that Barack Obama would unplug Fox News and outlaw conservative talk radio if he got elected. Of course, no president has the power to put a sock in Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly, but today Camp Obama did make one change at the FCC, the federal body that oversees and regulates television and radio: Obama picked an old Harvard Law School chum, Julius Genachowski, as the new boss of the agency.
We won't know for sure what sort of policies Genachowski, a former senior exec in Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp., will pursue until he gets grilled by Senators in his confirmation hearings. The only major policy shift announced so far has been a request to Congress to delay the switch to digital broadcasting set for Feb. 17 because Obama feels the transition was underfunded (judging by the rinky-dink quality of those snoozy late-night TV spots explaining the program, Obama is right). But it’s a pretty safe bet lots more change is coming to the airwaves after Jan. 20th. Although Obama has talked about his concerns as a father of two small daughters, he’s also said in interviews that he doesn’t believe the federal government should be in the business of policing the pop culture. That’s a major philosophical difference from the Bush administration, which launched an all-out offensive on obscenity on TV and radio over the past eight years, raising fines so high they pushed Howard Stern into digital radio and made Super Bowl XXXVIII the most expensive peep show in history (when the FCC fined CBS a record $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s infamous "wardrobe malfunction").
One thing Hollywood is hoping is on top of Genachowski to-do list: Finally coming up with an FCC-approved definition of obscenity — a list of words, pencil-drawn sketches, anything — so that the networks don’t have to continue guessing on their own. We’ll be keeping an eye on the confirmation hearings in case Genachowski brings any diagrams
LA Times
Breaking: FCC reviewing NBC's Golden Globes telecast
12:51 PM PT, Jan 14 2009
After receiving multiple complaints about NBC's Sunday telecast of the Golden Globes, the FCC said Wednesday that it is reviewing the program for possible violations of indecency rules.
Toward the end of the program, director Darren Aronofsky was caught on camera jokingly making an obscene gesture -- "flipping the bird," as it's commonly called -- at actor Mickey Rourke, who was onstage accepting an acting award for Aronofsky's film "The Wrestler." Rourke and other attendees also salted their speeches with occasional off-color language, some of which was bleeped by NBC censors.
Now the FCC, which regulates decency issues on the broadcast networks, has stepped into the fray. "We received 18 complaints about the Golden Globes telecast," FCC spokeswoman Edie Herman wrote in an e-mail to The Times, "and the commission is reviewing the matter."
An NBC spokeswoman confirmed that it aired the Aronofsky gesture on the live telecast. "On the West Coast, it went to black for two seconds," the spokeswoman e-mailed. "Beyond that, we have no further comment."
Aronofsky's publicist, Karen Samfilippo, said earlier this week that she had not heard anything from NBC about the matter.
The FCC has a mixed record with decency enforcement. The agency fined CBS $500,000 for airing Janet Jackson's notorious "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl. But a court overturned the fine last year.
ew.com
Barack Obama's new FCC chair: What's his pop culture agenda?
Jan 14, 2009, 04:29 PM | by Hollywood Insider
Categories: Current Affairs, Music, Radio, Television
During the presidential campaign, Republican operatives stirred up the base by suggesting that Barack Obama would unplug Fox News and outlaw conservative talk radio if he got elected. Of course, no president has the power to put a sock in Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly, but today Camp Obama did make one change at the FCC, the federal body that oversees and regulates television and radio: Obama picked an old Harvard Law School chum, Julius Genachowski, as the new boss of the agency.
We won't know for sure what sort of policies Genachowski, a former senior exec in Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp., will pursue until he gets grilled by Senators in his confirmation hearings. The only major policy shift announced so far has been a request to Congress to delay the switch to digital broadcasting set for Feb. 17 because Obama feels the transition was underfunded (judging by the rinky-dink quality of those snoozy late-night TV spots explaining the program, Obama is right). But it’s a pretty safe bet lots more change is coming to the airwaves after Jan. 20th. Although Obama has talked about his concerns as a father of two small daughters, he’s also said in interviews that he doesn’t believe the federal government should be in the business of policing the pop culture. That’s a major philosophical difference from the Bush administration, which launched an all-out offensive on obscenity on TV and radio over the past eight years, raising fines so high they pushed Howard Stern into digital radio and made Super Bowl XXXVIII the most expensive peep show in history (when the FCC fined CBS a record $550,000 for Janet Jackson’s infamous "wardrobe malfunction").
One thing Hollywood is hoping is on top of Genachowski to-do list: Finally coming up with an FCC-approved definition of obscenity — a list of words, pencil-drawn sketches, anything — so that the networks don’t have to continue guessing on their own. We’ll be keeping an eye on the confirmation hearings in case Genachowski brings any diagrams
