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Article:
Government Overregulation of Broadcast Content Could Backfire by: Terry Mitchell Rush is right! The government's stepped up bid to regulate broadcast television content is indeed frightening. Limbaugh made his comments during one of his regular radio broadcasts last year. Those remarks were in response to the FCC's crackdown on broadcast indecency and Congress' threats to hand out much larger fines to broadcasters for such violations, in the wake of Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' at the Super Bowl halftime show last February. Limbaugh is the not only media personality alarmed by this intensified government scrutiny of television content. At the beginning of his news program on CNN during that same time frame, Aaron Brown said he thought the only thing worse than Jackson's Super Bowl debacle is the fact that the government is now getting involved in trying to prevent similar incidents in the future. Amen, Aaron! Television, like any other business in a capitalistic society like ours, is and should be governed by the marketplace and the laws of supply and demand. I would love to see more family-friendly television programming. However, if there were truly a great demand for it, there would naturally be a lot more of it in existence (as well as a lot less of the offensive stuff). The folks who are pushing the hardest for greater government intervention to make TV more family-friendly will assert that they are in the majority of viewers and listeners in the U.S. However, the facts belie this assertion. Of the seven broadcast networks, PAX, widely recognized as the most family-friendly, is last in the ratings. It's not just last, it is dead last! PAX gets about one-fourth of the audience of the sixth place network! Even in places that don't have a local PAX affiliate, it is usually available as a cable channel. However, it's not even among the 30 top-rated cable channels. On the other hand, some of the TV shows and cable networks with the most controversial material get the highest ratings. Go figure. In reality, those who are clamoring the loudest for TV to 'clean up its act' know they are in the minority. Instead of tuning their TVs to PAX or one of the other tamer channels (as I do) or even turning their TVs completely off, they go running to the government to force their tastes on everyone else. Oddly enough, most of these people consider themselves conservatives. Funny, I thought conservatives disdained government intervention in favor of allowing the marketplace to take its course. Where did I ever get such a silly idea? What these people seemingly don't realize is that their efforts could very well backfire on them and all the rest of us. Broadcasters have generally submitted to the concepts of the V-chip and content ratings to help parents regulate their children's TV viewing in their homes. After all, isn't that what all of this hoopla is about? They have also meekly accepted reasonable fines from time to time for indecent broadcasts. However, the vocal minority is now demanding that the FCC and Congress play hardball, i.e., impose very large and numerous fines as well as revoking the licenses of stations found guilty of indecent broadcasts. In response to this demand, there are now bills circulating in both houses of Congress that would increase fines to the range of $'250
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