Statement of FCC Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein

Before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Hearing on "Protecting Children from Violent and Indecent Programming"

And House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet

Hearing on H.R. 3717, "The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004"

February 11, 2004

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of the Committee, thank
you for inviting me to testify.

Like many of you, I sat down with my wife and children to watch the
Super Bowl. I was expecting a showcase of America's best talent, both on
and off the field, and the apotheosis of our cultural creativity during
the entertainment and advertising portions. Instead, like millions of
others, I was appalled by the halftime show -- not just for the
shock-value stunt at the end, but for the overall raunchy performance
displayed in front of so many children -- one in five American children
were watching, according to reports. And the advertising set a new low
for what should air during family time.

The Super Bowl is a rare occasion for families to get together to enjoy
a national pastime everyone should be able to appreciate. Instead, a
special family occasion was truly disrespected.

I could highlight any number of tasteless commercials that depicted
sexual and bodily functions in a vile manner. Any sense of internal
controls appeared out the window, so long as the advertiser paid the
multi-million dollar rate.

One commercial that really stung my family, and many other parents with
whom I spoke, was a violent trailer for an unrated horror movie. It
showed horrible monsters with huge fangs attacking people. I literally
jumped out of my chair to get between the TV and my three-year old.
Other parents told me they couldn't reach for the remote control fast
enough. I wonder how those who chose to broadcast such violence can
sleep at night when they gave so many American children nightmares.

No parent should have to jump in front of the TV to block their children
from such images, whether during a commercial or a halftime show. No
parent should feel guilty for not being with their child every single
moment in case they need to block the TV during what most would consider
to be a family viewing event.

The entire Super Bowl broadcast was punctuated by inappropriate images
that were an embarrassment for our country. The halftime show, with its
global appeal, was a wasted opportunity to showcase the best that U.S.
culture has to offer. The U.S. has the world's greatest musical culture
to promote across the globe, and that includes the many artists who
performed at the event. Our musicians and artists offer a vibrant
musical melting pot that expands our horizons and enriches our culture.
As a musician myself, I am proud of artists who everyday express their
creativity without trying to one up each other in shock value. There is
plenty of magnificent talent here for the whole family to enjoy. It is
those performances that broadcasters should showcase. Instead, the
halftime show needlessly descended into lewdness and crassness.

This latest incident is only the tip of the iceberg. There is nearly
universal concern about the state of our public airwaves. I personally
received more than 10,000 emails last week, and the FCC received more
than 200,000. But that pales in comparison to the number of people who
over the past year expressed their outrage to me about the
homogenization and crassness of the media. The public is outraged by the
increasingly crude content they see and hear in their media today. They
are fed up with the sex, violence, and profanity flooding into our
homes. Just this month at an FCC hearing in San Antonio, a member of the
audience expressed concern with indecency on Spanish-language television
novellas.

Complaints are exploding that our airwaves are increasingly dominated by
graphic and shocking entertainment. Some observe that broadcasters are
only responding to competition from cable programming. Take MTV, a cable
network known for pushing the envelope. It's owned by Viacom, which also
owns CBS. It's no coincidence that MTV produced the halftime show. But
the network thoughtlessly applied the cable programmer's standards
during the Super Bowl -- the ultimate family event.

As a musician, I recognize that channels like MTV have a place in our
society. I also understand and respect that many would prefer that they
not intrude into the mainstream of American family life. Parents who
purchase cable television have the legal right to block any channel they
don't consider appropriate for their children. More parents should be
made aware of this right. Free over-the-air broadcasting, however,
offers no such alternative to parents. For broadcast material designed
for mature audiences, it's a matter of the right time and place.

Enough is enough. As a parent and an FCC Commissioner, I share the
public's disgust with increasingly crude radio and television content.

I've only served on the Commission for about a year, but I'm proud that
we've stepped up our enforcement in that time. And we need to ramp it up
even further. In my view, gratuitous use of swear words or nudity have
no place in broadcasting.

We need to act forcefully now. Not surprisingly, complaints before the
FCC are rising rapidly, with more than 240,000 complaints covering 370
programs last year. In the cases on which I have voted, I have supported
going to the statutory maximum for fines. But even this statutory
maximum - \$27,500 per incident - is woefully inadequate.

I welcome the efforts by Congress to authorize us to increase fines
substantially across all our areas of jurisdiction.

Awaiting such authority, I've pushed for new approaches to deter
indecency. We can increase the total amount of fines by fining for each
separate utterance within the same program segment. And we need to hold
hearings to consider revoking broadcasters' licenses in serious,
repeated cases. I worked last April to have the FCC put broadcasters on
notice that we were taking these steps to establish a stronger
enforcement regime. Our challenge now is to act more quickly when we get
complaints, and to ensure that our complaint procedures are as
consumer-friendly as possible.

But there are limits to what the FCC can do. We must balance strict
enforcement of the indecency laws with the First Amendment. If we
overstep, we risk losing the narrow constitutional authority we now have
to enforce the rules. Nevertheless, many cases I have seen in my tenure
are so far past any boundary of decency that any broadcaster should have
known the material would violate our rules.

So it may very well take more than the FCC to turn this around. We are
not the only ones with a public trust to keep the airwaves free from
obscene, indecent and profane material. Broadcasters are given exclusive
rights to use the public airwaves in the public interest. The
broadcasters themselves bear much of the responsibility to keep our
airwaves decent. As stewards of the airwaves, broadcasters are in the
position to step up and use their public airwaves in a manner that
celebrates our country's tremendous cultural heritage. Or they can
continue down the path of debasing that heritage. Their choices
ultimately will guide our enforcement.

Serving local communities is the cornerstone of the broadcaster's social
compact with the public. When people choose to become licensed
broadcasters, they understand that a public service responsibility comes
with that privilege. In his famous remarks lamenting the "vast
wasteland" of television, Newton Minow rightly observed that, "an
investment in broadcasting is buying a share in public
responsibility."[^1] Every broadcaster should take that to heart. Public
responsibility may mean passing up an opportunity to pander to the
nation's whims and current ratings trends when it is more important to
stand up and meet the needs of the local community.

Broadcasters need to show more corporate responsibility. They must rise
above commercial pressures, and recognize the broader social problems
they may be compounding.

Many factors set the cultural and moral tone of our society. I welcome
the attention that our indecency enforcement is receiving. I don't think
of it as silly or overblown, as some have suggested. The question before
America is whether the coarsening of our media is responsible for the
coarsening of our culture, or vice versa. My answer is both. They feed
on each other.

Media consolidation only intensifies the pressures. Fast-growing
conglomerates focus on the bottom line above all else. The FCC should
reconsider its dramatic weakening of media ownership limits last summer.

Local broadcasters also need the ability to reject network programming
that doesn't meet their communities' standards. The FCC must preserve
the critical back-and-forth local affiliates have with the networks in
the fight against indecency.

In terms of taking positive steps, the FCC can do more to help families.
Because our particular focus today is on children, one vital step is
completing a pending rulemaking on children's television obligations of
digital television. The FCC started this proceeding more than three
years ago, yet it remains unfinished. We should quickly complete this
proceeding to help meet children's educational needs, and give parents
tools to help their children make appropriate viewing choices.

During the Super Bowl, and on far too many other occasions, people feel
assaulted by what is broadcast at them. My job is to protect our
families from the broadcast of obscene, indecent or profane material.
That also means promoting healthy fare for our children. After all, the
airwaves are owned by the American people, and the public is eager to
take some control back.

[^1]: Newton N. Minow, "Television and the Public Interest" Speech
    Before the National Association of Broadcasters (May 9, 1961).