The Senate Commerce Committee appears ready to adopt some, but not all, changes the House Commerce Committee made to indecency legislation. But the Senate doesn’t look ready to raise the fines to the $500,000 level approved last week by the House Commerce Committee. The Senate bill would raise fines to 10 times the current level -- to $275,000 for each utterance and a total fine of $3 million for any one incident.
The cable industry Tues. announced a consumer education campaign in response to complaints that cable programming had become too risque. FCC Chmn. Powell called on cable last month to clean up its act voluntarily after complaints that indecent, profane and violent programming was just as prevalent on cable as broadcast, if not more so (CD Feb 12 p10). With the Super Bowl half-time performance of Janet Jackson still fresh, NCTA Pres. Robert Sachs wrote Powell and congressional leaders, saying cable was taking up the challenge and would try to find additional ways to address concerns about violent and indecent programming. The letter came the same day some congressional leaders attending an NAB conference called on the media industries to police themselves better on indecency(see separate story).
Incoming House Commerce Committee Chmn Barton (R-Tex.) said Thurs. cable and satellite broadcasters’ decency standards should be investigated. “Something that I am troubled by is that in terms of public standards on the public airwaves we still have the issue of cable and satellite. There are clear differences between over-the-air issues and cable and satellite issues. But to the average individual, if they don’t purchase premium channels, they don’t see that there is a difference and there is a difference, that is something we need to investigate further. Perhaps not in this legislation,” Barton said during a hearing on broadcast indecency. He commended some cable executives for starting to consider voluntary decency standards.
NTIA Acting Asst. Secy. Michael Gallagher said broadcast technology hasn’t been able adequately to weed out indecent content. “Technology hasn’t answered the question on decency content,” Gallagher told the Media Institute Tues. Gallagher cited a Feb. 13 study by Annenberg Center, which gave 110 families with children a new TV set containing V-Chips. Most parents received extensive operating instructions. Yet, at the end of one year, 77 families said they'd never tried the device, while just 8% claimed to be using it. “Is the technology completely useful? Is the rating system that useful? You have to ask those questions,” Gallagher said. He did applaud broadcasters’ self-policing efforts, such as CBS’s delay system during live broadcasts and Viacom’s “no tolerance” policies. However, Gallagher said he hoped those anti-indecency initiatives weren’t “temporary.” He also supported increasing tenfold the fines the FCC can place on decency violators and that FCC be required to impose the maximum penalty in cases where indecent content aired during child-rated programing. He also invited industry input in creating an action plan for 2005 that addresses communication technology issues.
Location-based technology in E-911 wireless phones and other Global System for Mobile (GSM)-equipped devices offer consumer benefits, but also privacy risks, conference panelists said Fri. Speaking at the International Assn. of Privacy Professionals summit, former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) said Congress needed to take the lead to protect consumers from govt. abuse of location-based technology, while others argued that corporate self-interest would ensure consumer privacy wasn’t violated.
A la carte pricing for cable or DBS services was a popular idea among officials at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on broadcast indecency Wed. Although the hearing focused on broadcast indecency, several members of Congress and a few FCC commissioners said it was increasingly difficult to distinguish cable and DBS from broadcast TV and all of those industries should be part of the debate. FCC commissioners also told members in both the House and the Senate that they supported efforts to raise FCC fines for indecent broadcasts.
With TV executives and federal officials still reeling from singer Janet Jackson’s breast exposure at the Super Bowl, cable industry officials said they expected little fallout for their industry from the FCC investigation or from possible action on Capitol Hill. NCTA Senior Vp-Law & Regulatory Policy Daniel Brenner said there was a well- entrenched legal precedent that distinguished between broadcasting and cable on indecency. “The law has recognized a difference,” Brenner said, between programming that came into the home free and unfiltered over the public airwaves, and cable, a paid subscription medium that was invited into the home.
House and Senate Committees are competing for witnesses for next week’s simultaneous hearings Feb. 11 on broadcast content. The House Telecom Subcommittee, which will hold its 2nd hearing of the year on indecency, appears close to getting witnesses who relate more directly to the Janet Jackson flap. House sources told us the Subcommittee was close to getting Viacom Pres. Mel Karmazin and NFL Comr. Paul Tagliabue. All 5 FCC commissioners are expected to testify at both hearings, sources said.
The Senate Commerce Committee is following the House’s lead in scheduling a hearing on indecency in broadcasting (CD Jan 29 p4). However, the Senate apparently will take its own path toward legislation. The Committee scheduled a hearing Feb. 11, 9:30 a.m., Rm. 253, Russell Bldg., titled: “Protecting Children from Violent and Indecent Programming.” The hearing will highlight a bill by from Senate Commerce ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.), S-161, that would ban broadcasting violent content that couldn’t be blocked by electronic means, such as the V-chip. The White House said Wed. it supported HR-3717 by House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.), which would make FCC fines for indecent broadcast 10 times the current ones. Upton said the bill was gaining co-sponsors and was on the “fast track.” However, a Senate Commerce Committee spokeswoman said the panel already had passed a bill that would give the FCC tougher fines -- the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-1264). That bill, introduced by Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.), also would also make fines 10 times as great for broadcasters and multichannel video providers. However, that bill also would raise fines for common carriers and for other instances. S-161 would require the FCC to study the V-chip for its effectiveness. If the Commission found it to be ineffective, it would be authorized to prohibit showing violent content during hours when children were likely to be watching.
NTIA told the FCC Fri. it supported adoption of the Commission’s current ultra-wideband (UWB) emission limits for all outdoor device applications. NTIA said restrictions on the pulse repetition frequency weren’t needed as long as current emission limits for handheld devices were met. “We support the FCC’s clarification of the UWB rules so that this new industry sector can take hold and grow while we protect critical federal systems from harmful interference,” Acting NTIA Dir. Michael Gallagher said. The FCC’s UWB rules “successfully strike that balance and provide a stable platform for development of new devices that will save lives, boost U.S. productivity and enrich the experience of U.S. consumers,” he said. NTIA analyzed pulsed frequency hopping vehicular radar systems at 22-29 GHz. The agency found no greater interference to govt. passive sensing satellites than is now allowed for impulse UWB vehicular radar systems. But it stressed its conclusions didn’t apply to UWB frequency hopping (FH) systems in other bands. NTIA also proposed a compliance measurement procedure for pulsed FH systems in other bands. It disagreed with an FCC proposal in a further notice that would eliminate the minimum bandwidth requirement from the definition of a UWB transmitter, which NTIA said could allow unlicensed non-UWB operations in restricted bands. In general, it said it agreed with the FCC that “significant changes to the rules should not be considered until more experience has been gained with UWB technology.” It said that if the FCC adopted the handheld UWB device emission limits for expanded outdoor device applications, restrictions on the pulsed repetition frequency wouldn’t be needed. NTIA said it agreed with the FCC that that proposal should be limited to UWB systems that used impulse modulation or high-speed chipping rates with a fractional bandwidth equal to or greater than 0.20 or a minimum bandwidth of 500 MHz as now defined in the Commission’s rules. “NTIA also believes that if the handheld emission limits are adopted, there is no technical reason to further limit UWB device applications as long as the Commission retains the current restrictions forbidding the use of a fixed outdoor infrastructure and the operation of UWB devices in toys,” it said. The agency said it also backed the FCC goal of clarifying its Part 15 guidance for measuring emission limits to ensure compatible operation of Part 15 transmission systems. But it said changes were needed to clarify existing FCC requirements to standardize the compliance measurements and to ensure “predictability and certainty for applicants seeking to certify Part 15 devices.” NTIA conducted analyses that showed the distance separation required for compatible operation between federal systems and narrowband Part 15 devices meeting the proposed peak power definition were greater than those for narrowband Part 15 devices meeting the current definition, which was based on the total peak power of the signal.