PTC Slams Fox Over Indecency Comments

The Parents Television Council today blasted arguments made by Fox Broadcasting in public comments filed with the FCC over its proposal to limit indecency complaints.

In a filing yesterday, Fox Entertainment Group and Fox Television Holdings said: “Fox urges the commission to conclude it is legally required and logically bound to cease attempting broadcast indecency limits once and for all.”

PTC President Tim Winter said: “Fox has the audacity to argue that the entire broadcast indecency law should be abolished. This is brought to you by the network that has aired scripted animated programs featuring a man masturbating a horse, a character eating excrement out of a baby’s diaper, and a baby eating a bowl of semen, just to name a few. Ask just about anyone who doesn’t get compensated by the broadcast networks and they’ll tell you that these scenes are patently offensive. Yet Fox wants the unfettered right to air this kind of content — or worse — at any time of day, even in front of children.

“Fox is trying to re-litigate the Supreme Court cases that it lost, rather than addressing the proposal by the FCC to focus only on ‘egregious’ instances of indecency. Fox has been making the same arguments for ten years and have already been rebuffed by the Supreme Court not once but twice. Why won’t Fox and the other networks simply abide by the common sense decency law? If they can’t, then they are unworthy of holding a license to use the public’s airwaves.

“The outpouring of the American people to the FCC is tremendous on the issue of broadcast indecency. The over 101,000 comments received over this FCC proposal dwarfs the number of people communicating to the FCC about any other matter. The American people (those without armies of lobbyists) are concerned about the volume of indecent material on TV that is targeting their children and grandchildren. The FCC and Congress must not ignore their voices.”