The FCC has stepped up enforcement of indecency standards after this year's controversial Super Bowl halftime show, with the "accidental" breast-baring of Janet Jackson during her performance with Justin Timberlake. Recently, the popular radio personality Howard Stern came under attack by the FCC for alleged indecency violations.

The proposed fines for indecency also recently increased, as the Senate multiplied the maximum by ten times the prior amount, from $27,500 to $275,000 per incident. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives have supported a fine up to $500,000 per incident.

Currently an indecency investigation begins when a member of the public files a complaint, and the objectionable material must be recorded and sent in for review. Michael Copps, the FCC's Commissioner, says that this rule has placed excessive responsibility on the citizen to prove an indecency occurred. By making radio and television stations retain recordings of their programming, it would lessen the burden of proof that currently rests on the citizen.

In the glory days of radio in the late 1960’s it was common for stations to archive years of broadcasts. Now radio as an industry is up in arms about archiving their broadcasts even for 60 days. Right winger zealots can sit at home and write letters to Michael Powell about the use of “objectionable” words on Howard Stern (but never Oprah or Sally Jessy) in their spare time but radio has far greater problems. Blinded by their growth because of industry deregulation in the mid-1990’s, some critics say radio has lost its audience and has alienated their most important partner – record companies. With the increasing speed of the Internet, Generation X and even more so Gen Y, have a decreasing association with FM radio. This is a dramatic reversal in one generation from their parents who actually were at one time in their youth, associated with FM radio. That is gone and is a far more troubling problem for radio than archiving broadcasts.

Another potentially fatal problem for radio is their failing relationship with record companies. Just 10 years ago if a new band wanted to get played on the radio they needed the influence of a major record label to get them on to FM radio and into major distribution. In that short period of time, radio got greedy with major radio groups wanting record labels to pay for “independent” record promotion from promotion companies owned by the radio group before a record could get played on the hundreds (in some cases more than 1000) stations. It got worse when radio groups started buying up concert halls and allegedly started suggesting that if a big name artist from a major label didn’t book their summer tour through their venues then perhaps that new R&B artist might not get the spins on their stations.

To this day, the relationship between radio and the labels has never been worse. The FCC’s crusade is without a question a problem but it is a problem that might get solved in November. The rift between Generation Y and FM radio is, in fact, a far greater problem for the music industry and radio that reaches far deeper than file sharing on peer-to-peer networks.

And there are some who believe that the denial that the radio and record industries have been in – the same denial which has prevented them from seeing the future clearly – is at work again. The real issue isn’t how long to store recordings of what is broadcast on the air. It’s how hard to fight for their rights to freedom of speech as allowed by the Constitution and enforced by a court of law.

That’s what’s next. Viacom for one seems ready to back Stern and take the challenge of free speech to the courts. If a court challenge is not forged and if the weight of a favorable decision is not ultimately rendered, then it doesn’t matter what is on the recording tapes – for whatever time the FCC will require them to be kept. In that case the tapes are as valuable recorded as if they were blank should freedom of expression without the realm of the Constitution is not preserved.

Sources:
http://www.news.yahoo.com
http://www.fcc.gov