Stevens holds forth on indecency
The powerful Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee says he has plans to get to work on the Broadcast Enforcement Act very soon, and that he will make an attempt to bring MVPDs (Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) into the indecency enforcement mix. The House has already passed a bill which would raise the maximum single-offense fine from 32.5K to 500K. Any attempt to bring in MVPDs, which generally refer to cable and DBS operators, would have to be resolved in conference committee.
On the immediate prospects of the BDEA, Stevens said, "I think we'll probably try to report out a Senate bill and on the floor put it in as a substitute to the House and to conference. I think what they've done is grand. I really think we have a wonderful working relationship with the House. I think Chairman Barton really is right on it and we're going to try and work together. They started it first over there. In the end it will be a House bill, it will be a House number, we'll work it out with them. They haven't really, they didn't get into this level playing field like I did, but I, you know, I've been waiting to be Chairman so I could do this and I want to do it, so I'm going to try. We don't know yet where the votes are on the floor, but I haven't had many objections, any objections to the floor yet."
Here are some more of Sen. Stevens' comments on the topic.
"It will be as soon as we can bring it about and yes, I intend to try and level the playing field. I take the position that at the time the Supreme Court made its decision about cable, cable was just one of the ways for public access to television products. Today 85 percent of the television that is brought to American homes is brought by cable and I believe that the playing field should be leveled. We have imposed this as a standard on local broadcasters. Under the law, we compel cable to carry those local broadcasters.
"But today when this indecency takes place, the people I've talked to call their local television station and say: 'What's this? Why should I be looking at this?' The second thing is, cable has situation where if you want to protect yourself, your children from that, you have the duty to call them and say how can I prevent this from coming into my house. We're not going to censor cable.
"We're just going to do, by the way, what the movie business does in the beginning - - you read the ad about the movie, you look at it and it tells you whether its something you should take your children to. Why should cable insist that you have to call them because your children have already seen something that you don't want them to see?
"Now, we are going to mark it up and I hope cable comes to its senses and understands that I think the American people mean business. I've got a thousand emails, what not, spurred by the cable industry. We got 10,000 from the public and I believe the public is with us. We ought to find some way to say, here is a block of channels, whether it's delivered by broadband, by VoIP, by whatever it is, to a home, that is clear of the stuff you don't want your children to see.
"And, were not saying you can't, you know, you can buy anything you want, I don't care how they package it. If you want to pay for, you have a right to buy it. We're not saying anything about purchases, except we're saying, they have the burden to tell you what's in it like the movie business does, not force you to expose your children first and then go back and say how can I get right of this stuff.
"I think they'll come to their senses, I really do. I think the Congress means business now. I have not received many complaints from, I can't think of any real complaints from Members of Congress about what I have been saying. They say right on, but do it right, and that's why we postponed the markup until after the recess and we're going to do it right and I invite cable to come in and talk. I've told them, we're ready to talk. As a matter of fact, I've only been married for 25 years and I'm going on my honeymoon a week from today. Coming back from that honeymoon we'll stop in at the cable convention and talk to them."
On his own viewing habits: "I'm not a prude, I like to watch the Sopranos once in a while. I turn them off once in a while, too, but I was sitting there the other night signing my mail and I had on this one program and all I heard was four letter words and participles."
Shades of "Saving Private Ryan": "Now, when I served in World War II most of us didn't have very good vocabulary, so that's why we used those things, those four letter words, but they've got better writers than that. They can say the same thing without doing that."
Are you reading this from a forwarded email?