Pardon my outburst, but Fuck the FCC

FCC combing air tapes for dirty words

I rarely watch televised sports, but if I happened to overhear some rowdy spectator call the referee an “asshole“, it certainly wouldn’t damage my sensibilities. That the FCC would be wasting my taxdollars combing through “crowd noise” really pisses me off. I can just picture Jerry Falwell‘s gang of nanny-state nazis sitting in front of the tube, volume cranked to 100, poring over every sound in search of an errant “fuck” or “shit“.

Yeah, folks, the far-right disgusts me just as much as the far-left. Whackos are whackos, regardless of their flavor. (Ain’t Wikipedia cool?)

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) – In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said.

Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs.

“It looks like they want to end live broadcast TV,” said one executive, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “We already know that they aren’t afraid to go after news.”

[…]
“I don’t know how they are going to rule, but they asked us for tapes with a specific emphasis on crowd noise,” said another TV executive, who also requested anonymity. “If some bozo in the crowd calls the ref an asshole, the commission is asking for a copy of the tape.”

[…]
The commission this month asked the same federal court for more time to consider affiliates’ arguments that the agency erred in March when it decided variations of the words “fuck” and “shit” likely are to be indecent whenever broadcast, even if the words are uttered accidentally.