Stern warnings

Update: see comment below, and new post above. jdd

Blogger's note: This post is just a draft; stay tuned for an updated, expanded version soon. Thanks! jdd

A pie chart and a nipple illustrate what's happening to radio

Everybody chuckled back in January when Dennis Kucinich pulled out a pie chart to illustrate a point in a radio debate. But that was before February's Super-Bowl nipple flash. Now it's March, and we're learning that visuals do too have an effect on radio.

Howard Stern is no stranger to flesh on the radio: putting naked women in front of live mics is his trademark stunt. What a strange twist that the exposed breast that may end his career was never even on his show, except in whatever mention he made of it after it was broadcast live on national television. But now that FCC fines have ballooned like a starlet with a silicone job in the wake of the boob-on-the-tube incident, Stern says he's "a dead man walking" and will soon broadcast his last show. Listeners in six cities where Stern was heard until recently won't hear that last show or any other, because Clear Channel, owner of the Stern affiliate stations in those cities, had already pulled him off the air.

Meanwhile, in public radio, Los Angeles station KCRW fired commentator Sandra Tsing Loh after she blurted an obscenity in a taped program -- a word she said she thought the engineers would cut before broadcast. "It is the equivalent of the Janet Jackson performance piece and there is not a radio or TV programmer today who does not understand the seriousness involved to the station," KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour told the BBC.

At this point, we should explain for those just joining us that the rules for over-the-airways broadcasting are quite different from those regulating any other kind of broadcasting, such as cable TV, satellite or Internet. That's because the public airwaves are considered public property, property that is governed by the Federal Communications Commission, a group of political appointees currently chaired by Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Meddlesome conservative busybodies hiding behind the nipple shield are charging forward to claim jurisdiction over our airwaves, and they're gaining ground fast. But all the excitement over the bared breast and its consequences is itself a distraction from an even bigger story: not only is free speech on the public airwaves under threat, but the public domain is being claimed by private enterprise. And worse, now even facts, long assumed to be in the public domain, may soon become private intellectual property as well. And that's the real obscenity.  ¶ 6:43 PM |