Tag: FCC

Or are you just happy to see us?

Note: the title will require you to click the link. We can be quirky like that.

Nobody likes to wake up in the morning. Most of the time, waking up interrupts your sleep, especially when you’re in the middle of that totally awesome dream involving the Chiquita Banana lady and a pack of velociraptors in Camelot. That’s the worst. It also sucks to wake up because then you have to start your day. And during the winter, having to go to work while it’s still dark outside is the pits.

So imagine how horrible it was to wake up and find a cell phone tower in your yard. Because then you’d be the Di Marco family. The tower, reportedly being put up by NextG, has been rationalized by the company to be put up as the FCC

granted them the right to do so and provide communication service, it was a public necessity.

So, there’s that.

Say whatever the 5#*& you want

Sort of kind of maybe, that is.

A Manhattan court of appeals has thrown out the FCC’s regulations on the First Amendment. Well, on First Amendment grounds, that is. The basic gist of this is that now live television doesn’t have to live in fear of heavy fine because a single, solitary curse word slipped through.

Which is very good. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we should start dropping the f-bomb or Harry Seeward on the evening news (even if Rick likes it when Katie Couric talks dirty, and we’re talking about the oil spill), but accidents do happen. Though, like all good things, this bit of news does have its detractors.

“Let’s be clear about what has happened here today: A three-judge panel in New York once again has authorized the broadcast networks unbridled use of the `F-word’ at any time of the day, even in front of children,” [Parent Television Council President Tim] Winter said in a statement.

Not quite, though I do have some suspicions that Brian Williams would give one awesome Mel Gibson-esque speech if pushed too far.

Court: Super Bowl needed tits

With a ruling that’s guaranteed to offend anyone who pretends they don’t like women’s breasts, a U.S. Appeals court has thrown out the FCC’s fine against CBS for the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime “Show.”

For those who don’t know what we’re talking about*, Justin Timberlake ripped part of Janet Jackson’s clothes off, revealing a very bizarre star-thingie … and a boob somewhere under that. Half the nation was appalled–demanding that the FCC babysit for them–while the other half thought they were clever to joke about the Levitra commercials.

Well, it’s all settled now: the possibly-modified breast did, in fact, make a Super Bowl Halftime Show remotely watchable for the only time in the game’s history.

And now, readers, as you were.

*SeriouslyGuys would like to wish a very happy birthday to devoted reader Hunter Cramdale, who just turned four-years-old! Hunter, your Booze News stein is in the mail and be sure to ask your parents about Janet Jackson’s honkers.

Finally: an FCC fine we can agree with

Fox, by way of News Corp., is in trouble with the FCC for airing pixelated boobies on some show we’ve never seen called Married by America. This is the standard on which the FCC has based their suit:

“It ‘in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.'”

Which has been applied to this:

“‘the thrusting of a male stripper’s crotch into a woman’s face; a topless stripper performing a lap dance for a groom-to-be; a topless female stripper spanking with a whip or belt the buttocks of a topless man who is on all fours; two topless female strippers apparently kissing while straddling a shirtless man; and a female stripper cupping her own bare breasts and puckering her lips.'”

The FCC is absolutely correct: this should not have been obscured with pixels! Fox, you owe us some strippers.

Pixelation can’t prevent

It looks like the FCC‘s back at it again. The government group is fining Fox TV affiliates $7,000 for showing a naked bachelor party scene on some ridiculous reality show that nobody watched … but they’re only fining stations that somebody complained to. That’s 13 out of 169 in the network, which my calculator function tells me comes out to a grandiose number of one whole percent. More than that, the offensive material was fully pixelated, but still allegedly has the power to offend. Apparently, it’s OK to broadcast whatever you like as long as you never open your mail.

Who’s a little late to the party?

The FCC’s a little late to the party! The FCC wants to fine ABC and its affiliates $1.4 million for broadcasting someone’s bare tuckus on a five year old episode of NYPD Blue, a show that not only has been off the air for at least two and a half years, but is no real stranger to showing nudity. Y’know, especially since it’s been doing that sort of thing since it’s debut in 1993 and has always been broadcasted with the appropriate warnings and all.  By the way, butt cheeks are now a “sexual organ,” but maybe that just depends on how you use them.