Comedy central always plays an unedited version of a movie at 1 am on either saturday or sunday morning each week. This could have been it but its pretty wierd that even this is allowed

"Inddecenty" is a big issue in Congress at the moment.

This information is from Broadcasting and Cable Magazine – 12/5/05 Edition…

The following is paraphrased...not cut and paste...

Four bills on TV indecency are currently under consideration in Congress:

HR 310 – Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005.

Sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Michigan)

Has passed the House and is now held up in the Senate Commerce Committee. Would set fines as high at $500,000 for any broadcast licensee determined by the FCC to have broadcast “obscene, indecent or profane material.” (Current fine is $32,500 per violation.) The bill does not cover cable.


S-193 – Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005.

Sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas)

Would increase fines for broadcast licensees to $325,000 per day per indecenty violations. Fines cold reach up to $3,000,000 for each specific incident.

(Note that these two bills have the same name – probably waiting for negotiations within/between the House and Senate Committees)


S-616 – Indecent and Gratuitous and Excessively Violent Programming Control Act of 2005.

Sponsored by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-West Virginia)

Would direct the FCC to study whether current ratings and blocking systems are adequate for parental use. If not, prohibit licensees from broadcasting such programs during so called “Children’s Viewing Hours,” and come up with new protections.


S-946 – Kid-Friendly TV Programming Act of 2005.

Sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)

Would require cable and direct broadcast satellite operators to offer a “child-friendly” programming tier (15 channels at least) and publish channel blocking instructions to parents on the monthly bill.


A few things to point out:

First, notice that only the final bill addresses cable and Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS).

Second, notice that the other bills address “licensees.” Those are TV stations that broadcast on the "Public Airways" and are licensed by the Federal government. That’s because the FCC has no authority over networks – only “over the air” broadcasters. The Commission does have some clout over the networks that feed on air TV stations, though, because they all own a number of local market TV stations which earn the lion’s share of each networks income. By regulating the “Owned and Operated” stations, (we call them O&O’s) the government is able to regulate networks to varying degrees. The raising of fines is Congress’ way of giving the Commission a heavier hand, since each of the major networks may own twenty or so O&O stations. Those fines can get pretty hefty when applied to that many occurrences.

Finally, it is important to understand the difference between cable/DBS networks and “over the air” networks due to above. That becomes even more difficult when you have both types of networks named “FOX” and the lines between the major on air networks and cable services they have purchased blur more and more.