politics

The Forest Appears Through the Trees

March 30, 2005

After Monday’s story about new FCC chairman Kevin Martin, it appears that some in the media are beginning to realize the long-term free speech implications of his support for tough fines for “indecent” content aired on television and radio.

Any discussion of Martin’s views should also include a look at legislation recently proposed by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) that calls for extending the FCC’s fining mandate to include cable and satellite TV and satellite radio. (Currently, the FCC only polices broadcast content.) If passed, subscription-only channels like HBO and Showtime would be forced to adhere to the same standards as NBC, CBS and ABC, in effect making them expensive versions of the alphabets. (Are we ready for a family-friendly Tony Soprano’s reaction when he learns of yet another mob thug planning treachery against The Boss?)

Bundling the Martin story and the Stevens stories together seems like a no-brainer, yet for the most part the media hasn’t been able to connect the dots in any meaningful way, leading to some scattershot and incomplete reporting on the issues of free speech protection for televised content. Over the past several days, however, some light has begun to seep through the thick canopy of the media’s bubble. Businessweek‘s David Kiley stepped up on Monday, writing:

I don’t think I’m off base when I suggest that consumers, red state or blue, are not that keen on having choices removed by the government … The degree to which even right-of-center consumer/voters want the Feds mucking around in their lives, limiting choices and acting like an Extreme Nanny can easily be over-estimated.

Conservatives seem poised to overreach in President Bush’s second term. They have been winning their battle to deny same-sex marriage rights, because it’s easy to demonize gay people. Who do you demonize when you go after people who watch “The Sopranos” or “The Shield”? The answer: “voters.”

This isn’t to suggest that it is only conservatives who are going after broadcast and cable programming. Plenty of Democrats (including the FCC’s senior Democrat, Michael J. Copps, and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, among others) support tougher fines.

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But the loudest voices come from the political right — and few louder than the Media Research Center’s fine-happy Brent Bozell, who penned an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday citing several polls that seem to support his contention that Hollywood is “dramatically out of touch” with the values of most Americans.

Bozell finds that “So upset is the public that about 49 percent agree that FCC regulation ought to be extended to cover basic cable, which includes raunchy reality shows on MTV and the over-the-top FX show, ‘The Shield.'”

Meantime, the public itself is displaying considerable schizophrenia on the issue. Despite its apparent hunger for cable TV to clean up its act, Broadcasting & Cable reported last week that “Cable beat the seven broadcast networks in February sweeps for the first time ever, notching a 49.4 household share in prime time compared with broadcast’s 48.6. Cable is on par to win its second straight broadcast season with a 51.8 share this season to date, compared with broadcast’s 45.7, according to Turner Research analysis of Nielsen Media Research numbers.”

We’re not calling Bozell’s poll numbers into question — it’s likely they’re accurate. But that doesn’t mean they’re an honest reflection of what Americans actually want to watch in the privacy of their own homes; what they more likely document is what people feel they should want to watch. The Nielsen numbers show that there’s a not-insignificant gap between the two.

Drawing this out further, we can look to the top five “cable originals” aired in February, which included Spike TV’s “Ultimate Fighter” and A&E’s “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” Not exactly family fare, yet as the Nielsen numbers show, they’re wildly popular. Using one of Bozell’s own examples of “raunchy” TV that his polls show so upsets the sensibilities of the American people, the Nielsen numbers reveal that the top returning cable show this season is none other than FX’s “The Shield” (averaging 2.34 million viewers, up 16 percent from last season).

If the wishes of those like Martin and Stevens come true, shows like these would either have to close up shop or tone down their content — the same content that is the very reason people watch in the first place. In the end, it isn’t only a free speech issue, but also a consumer issue — and because of that, perhaps, some will begin to pay more attention to those who profess to know what’s best for the American people.

–Paul McLeary

Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.