It’s been over six years since Janet Jackson had her costume incident during a Super Bowl halftime show, and the battle over the $550K fine subsequently levied by the FCC continues to march through the courts. It’s made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which shunted it back for another round at the Third Circuit.
The FCC continues to argue that it has every right to punish incidents such as this, and points out that there were ample warning signals prior to the performance that should have put CBS on guard.
CBS argues that the fleeting incident standard should apply, since the episode was over in less than a second. It also argued that the FCC is changing the rules on the fly, and that they are enforced capriciously anyway.
The court may rule on the incident or send it back to the FCC for further study. There is no timeline for either option at the moment.
