After suffering a loss in the Second Circuit in its attempt to enforce an indecency finding against Fox and ABC, the FCC is appealing to the Supreme Court. It says the lower court erred in finding for the broadcasters.
At issue are incidents of indecency involving fleeting profanity on live awards programming on Fox, and some exposed female body parts on ABC that the FCC felt went over the line.
The FCC is asking the Court to consider two questions:
1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in invalidating a finding by the Federal Communications Commission that a broadcast including expletives was indecent within the meaning of statutory and regulatory prohibition on indecent broadcasts, on the ground that the FCC’s context-based approach to determining indecency is unconstitutionally vague in its entirety.
2. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in invalidating a finding by the FCC that a broadcast including nudity was indecent within the meaning of statutory and regulatory prohibitions on indecent broadcasts, on the ground that the FCC’s context-based approach to determining indecency is unconstitutionally vague in its entirety.
The FCC pointed out that failure of the Supreme Court to step in may give broadcasters the sense that they have license to put anything at all on the air without regard to the entire body of indecency regulation that is in place.
RBR-TVBR observation: We’ll be watching to see if the court takes up the case. The bet here is that it will. The question is what it will do. Is an overhaul of FCC regulation, in order to attempt to get the arbitrariness and capriciousness out of it in order?
