Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/556-u-s-502-606040306
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:20:05+00:00

Document:
Party Name: FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, et al., Petitioners, v. FOX TELEVISION STATIONS, INC., et al.
Federal law bans the broadcasting of "any . . . indecent . . . language," 18 U.S.C. §1464, which includes references to sexual or excretory activity or organs, see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073. Having first defined the prohibited speech in 1975, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a cautious, but gradually expanding, approach to enforcing the statutory prohibition. In 2004, the FCC's Golden Globes Order declared for the first time that an expletive (nonliteral) use of the F-Word or the S-Word could be actionably indecent, even when the word is used only once.
489 F.3d 444, reversed and remanded.
Court's opinions for a requirement that all agency change be subjected to more searching review. Although an agency must ordinarily display awareness that it is changing position, see United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 696, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039, and may sometimes need to account for prior factfinding or certain reliance interests created by a prior policy, it need not demonstrate to a court's satisfaction that the reasons for the new policy are better than the reasons for the old one. It suffices that the new policy is permissible under the statute, that there are good reasons for it, and that the agency believes it to be better, which the conscious change adequately indicates. Pp. 1809 -1812.
(b) Under these standards, the FCC's new policy and its order finding the broadcasts at issue actionably indecent were neither arbitrary nor capricious. First, the FCC forthrightly acknowledged that its recent actions have broken new ground, taking account of inconsistent prior FCC and staff actions, and explicitly disavowing them as no longer good law. The agency's reasons for expanding its enforcement activity, moreover, were entirely rational. Even when used as an expletive, the F-Word's power to insult and offend derives from its sexual meaning. And the decision to look at the patent offensiveness of even isolated uses of sexual and excretory words fits with Pacifica's context-based approach. Because the FCC's prior safe-harbor-for-single-words approach would likely lead to more widespread use, and in light of technological advances reducing the costs of bleeping offending words, it was rational for the agency to step away from its old regime. The FCC's decision not to impose sanctions precludes any argument that it is arbitrarily punishing parties without notice of their actions' potential consequences. Pp. 1812 -1813.
new policy is a presumption of indecency for certain words. It reads more into Pacifica than is there by arguing that the FCC failed adequately to explain how this regulation is consistent [129 S.Ct. 1805] with that case. And Fox's argument that the FCC's repeated appeal to "context" is a smokescreen for a standardless regime of unbridled discretion ignores the fact that the opinion in Pacifica endorsed a context-based approach. Pp. 1814 - 1815.
2. Absent a lower court opinion on the matter, this Court declines to address the FCC orders' constitutionality. P. 1819.
Gregory G. Garre, Washington, DC, for Petitioners.
Carter Phillips, for Respondents. Richard Cotton, Susan Weiner, New York, NY, Miguel A. Estrada, Andrew S. Tulumello, Matthew D. McGill, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Washington, D.C., for Respondents NBC Universal, Inc. and NBC Telemundo License Company.
Jonathan H. Anschell, Los Angeles, CA, Susanna M. Lowy, New York, NY, for Respondent CBS Broadcasting Inc.
Robert Corn-Revere, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, Washington, D.C., John W. Zucker, New York, NY, Seth P. Waxman, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C., for Respondent ABC, Inc.
Ellen S. Agress, New York, NY, Maureen A. O'Connell, Washington, DC, Carter G. Phillips, R. Clark Wadlow, James P. Young, Jennifer Tatel, David S. Petron, Quin M. Sorenson, Sidley Austin LLP, Washington, D.C., for Respondent Fox Television Stations, Inc.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Parul Desai, Jonathan Rintels, Washington, DC, for Center for Creative Voices in Media, Inc.
Matthew B. Berry, General Counsel, Joseph R. Palmore, Deputy General Counsel, Jacob M. Lewis, Associate General Counsel, Nandan M. Joshi, Washington, D.C., Paul D. Clement, Solicitor General, Gregory G. Katsas, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Gregory G. Garre, Deputy Solicitor General, Eric D. Miller, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Thomas M. Bondy, Anne Murphy, Washington D.C., for Petitioner.
SCALIA, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III A through III-D, and IV, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III-E, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. KENNEDY, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. STEVENS, J., and GINSBURG, J., filed dissenting opinions. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.
Federal law prohibits the broadcasting of "any . . . indecent . . . language," 18 U.S.C. §1464, which includes expletives referring to sexual or excretory activity or organs, see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978). This case concerns the adequacy of the Federal Communications Commission's explanation of its decision that this sometimes forbids the broadcasting of indecent expletives even when the offensive words are not repeated.
limited-term broadcast licenses subject to various "conditions" designed "to maintain the control of the United States over all the channels of radio transmission," §301 (2000 ed.). Twenty-seven years ago we said that "[a] licensed broadcaster is granted the free and exclusive use of a limited and valuable part of the public domain; when he accepts that franchise it is burdened by enforceable public obligations." CBS, Inc. v. FCC, 453 U.S. 367, 395, 101 S.Ct. 2813, 69 L.Ed.2d 706 (1981) (internal quotation marks omitted).

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