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FCC to fine Viacom $1.5 MILLION in effort to muzzle Howard Stern

So? This isn't even the biggest fine Stern's ever earned. Stern knows the boundries. Knowingly crosses them. And gets fined for it (or should I say his employers get fined for it). This has been going his entire career. Heck, he's made his career out of this. Why is it suddenly such a big deal?


Lethal
 
So if you're Infinity, you just say, "I'm sorry, Howard, but the joy ride is over. You can't do that kind of stuff when little kids are listening any more. We're moving your show to 11 p.m."
 
Thomas Veil said:
So if you're Infinity, you just say, "I'm sorry, Howard, but the joy ride is over. You can't do that kind of stuff when little kids are listening any more. We're moving your show to 11 p.m."
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LethalWolfe said:
So? This isn't even the biggest fine Stern's ever earned. Stern knows the boundries. Knowingly crosses them. And gets fined for it (or should I say his employers get fined for it). This has been going his entire career. Heck, he's made his career out of this. Why is it suddenly such a big deal?
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Again, it seems no one gets the wider implications involved here.

For Lethal: the point is, there ARE no clearly defined boundaries. The FCC has never clearly defined them, and just going by examples of 8 pm sitcoms or select Oprah Winfrey episodes (and the list goes on and on) Stern is not even AS risque as those, yet he's the only one being currently persecuted. And if you think this isn't political, consider this: the last fine against him (two weeks ago) was for an incident that occurred three years ago. The new fines are doubtless for more incidents that occurred years ago. Why fine him now? Coincidentally, Howard came out against Bush about a month ago. What a surprise!

For Thomas: When is a kid more likely to listen to radio unsupervised, 6am-10am or 11pm? Let's see, from 6-10 I was getting dressed for school and getting driven there by my mom. At 11 pm I was listening to Lovelines (not the current version) on my walkman - sex talk far, far, more explicit than Howard's show. Who are we really protecting? Kids, or the religious right's opinion of Howard?
 
tveric said:
Again, it seems no one gets the wider implications involved here.

For Lethal: the point is, there ARE no clearly defined boundaries. The FCC has never clearly defined them, and just going by examples of 8 pm sitcoms or select Oprah Winfrey episodes (and the list goes on and on) Stern is not even AS risque as those, yet he's the only one being currently persecuted. And if you think this isn't political, consider this: the last fine against him (two weeks ago) was for an incident that occurred three years ago. The new fines are doubtless for more incidents that occurred years ago. Why fine him now? Coincidentally, Howard came out against Bush about a month ago. What a surprise!
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Of course there are no clearly defined boundaries because we are dealing w/something that is not definable (I went into a bit more detail in the other Stern thread). And it is common for shows to recieve fines a year or more after their orginal air date because there is only so fast the FCC can review and "rule" on questionable content.

Stern has been getting fined since the first Bush was in office and recieved his biggest single fine when Clinton was in office. Were Bush #1 and Clinton also conspiring to get Stern off the air?

Stern isn't even the biggest fine reciever of late (of course that would change if the 1.5mil fine goes thru). CC got hit w/a $715,000 fine thanks to DJ "Bubba the Love Sponge." Bubba got *fired* but no one ever brings him up. Stern is just carried 35 stations now instead of 41. Why aren't people talking about the Bush/Bubb the Love Sponge conspiracy?

Again, Stern has made a career out of pushing the limits, incuring fines, and battleing w/the FCC. Why is it so different this time around (besides the fact that a company finally got tired of paying Stern's fines and dropped his show from the six stations that carried it)?


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
Again, Stern has made a career out of pushing the limits, incuring fines, and battleing w/the FCC. Why is it so different this time around (besides the fact that a company finally got tired of paying Stern's fines and dropped his show from the six stations that carried it)?
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I am not to worried for Howard Stern. He makes enough money off of his show that fines aren't even a drop in the bucket.

Of course if he does get kicked off broadcast radio, he can always move to XM radio. The FCC can't regulate that.
 
LethalWolfe said:
Of course there are no clearly defined boundaries because we are dealing w/something that is not definable (I went into a bit more detail in the other Stern thread). And it is common for shows to recieve fines a year or more after their orginal air date because there is only so fast the FCC can review and "rule" on questionable content.

Stern has been getting fined since the first Bush was in office and recieved his biggest single fine when Clinton was in office. Were Bush #1 and Clinton also conspiring to get Stern off the air?

Stern isn't even the biggest fine reciever of late (of course that would change if the 1.5mil fine goes thru). CC got hit w/a $715,000 fine thanks to DJ "Bubba the Love Sponge." Bubba got *fired* but no one ever brings him up. Stern is just carried 35 stations now instead of 41. Why aren't people talking about the Bush/Bubb the Love Sponge conspiracy?

Again, Stern has made a career out of pushing the limits, incuring fines, and battleing w/the FCC. Why is it so different this time around (besides the fact that a company finally got tired of paying Stern's fines and dropped his show from the six stations that carried it)?
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Guess what, posting in two threads just means you posted incorrect info twice. Stern has never been fined. There was, about 10 years ago, a $1.7 million settlement paid by Infinity Broadcasting that was basically extortion - Infinity had to pay because the FCC was burying their license requests and station acquisition requests in paperwork, and the FCC didn't want to go to court because they would have lost. Regardless, it was NOT a fine, it was instead treated as a tax-deductible "voluntary contribution."

I'll also repost your ignorance of "defined boundaries." In your "detail" you claim that a Supreme Court justice said "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." In reality, Justice Potter Stewart said he knew OBSCENITY when he saw it, and the movie in question was NOT obscene. In other words, he was defending free speech in the face of the right-wing religious nuts who had brought the case to the Supreme Court in the first place, by saying that you can't just decide that something you don't like is obscene and thereby abridge someone's free speech rights. Nothing Stern says is obscene, and I challenge you to find an example of something he said on-air that is.

Next time try not to use the words of a justice who disagreed with you to support your view that everyone should have only the safe, boring radio content that you like as an option. You can't muzzle someone just because you don't like them, not in this country. We require a good reason for you to abridge free speech rights here, such as yelling "fire" in a movie theater can kill people. Anything less than a good reason, such as the "I know it's wrong when I see it even though I won't lay out any actual rules for you to follow!" smacks a little too much of book-burning. If you're really into that, there's several countries that will be happy to have you. Just don't try it in the USA.
 
Dippo said:
I am not to worried for Howard Stern. He makes enough money off of his show that fines aren't even a drop in the bucket.

Of course if he does get kicked off broadcast radio, he can always move to XM radio. The FCC can't regulate that.
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You shouldn't be worried for Howard Stern. You should be worried for free speech in general. What happens next time, when some content you like or support is banned from the airwaves because the current politicians in power didn't like it? Remind you of anything?

What happens when the FCC moves to regulate satellite radio? Who's gonna stand up and stop them?

That ought to be your fear, as it is mine. Not Howard Stern.
 
This boils down to two very simple premises:

1. If you don't like it, there is no law saying you have to listen to/watch it.
2. If you would worry about what you are doing as opposed to what others are, society, as a whole, would be so much better.

But unfortunately, as long as there are people who are easily offended, there will be those who offend them and vice versa.

I have essentually given up trying to get people to respect my point of view so I'll just look out for myself, make sure my actions aren't harming anybody else, and go on living a somewhat well adjusted life.
 
leftbanke7 said:
This boils down to two very simple premises:

1. If you don't like it, there is no law saying you have to listen to/watch it.
2. If you would worry about what you are doing as opposed to what others are, society, as a whole, would be so much better.
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If it were only that simple..... :rolleyes:
 
I was more offended by watching footage of the captured soldier on the news today than i was about anything ever said on the Howard Stern show. I think the TV news media needs to stop trying to get ratings and instead show news that really effects us.
 
FCC sucks really hard.


There was no reason for this last push to get everything off the air, the latest thing wasn't even his fault, it was the listener for calling in and saying that.
 
coopdog said:
As long as the ****in' FCC doesn't come after any shows on Comedy Central, ill be a happy communist.
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Well, guess what. John Ashcroft has already decided that cable TV is the next medium on his hit list. Luckily, there's a way to fight this, and it's called Your Vote in November. Good luck.

The Slippery Slope of TV Censorship
 
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