NONCOMMERCIAL STATIONS want the FCC to resolve the years-long review of its indecency rule enforcement policy, preferably by clarifying that TV and radio stations are in the best position to program to their viewers' tastes. That comes in comments amid the FCC's ongoing efforts to modernize media regulation filed by PBS, National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and America's Public Television Stations. FCC rules prohibit indecent content on broadcasting between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and obscene content at any time of day, but broadcasters have shown historic restraint outside that regulatory window. Something that often gets missed in the debates over broadcasters and content is that, theoretically they could air full frontal nudity and swearing that would make a sailor blush between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., but don't because they have concluded that is not what their audiences want. As for the occasional swear word or naughty bits that might inadvertently slip into the picture, the vast majority of audience at any age have seen worse on the increasingly ubiquitous and unregulated internet. The noncom groups said they don't oppose the restrictions on indecent content, per se, but do want the FCC to return to the pre-2004 enforcement regime of "generally deferring to broadcasters' reasonable good faith editorial judgment in these matters." The post-2004 regime included numerous fines and advisories, with examples, on what was indecent in the FCC's view. In his first TV interview as chairman back in February 2017, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said that if the agency is presented with an indecency complaint, "we are duty bound to enforce the law and the law that is on the books today requires that broadcasters keep it clean, so to speak." The FCC gets complaints about the occasional "F-bomb;" there was that 2017 Stephen Colbert "pricktator" comment about President Donald Trump that drew the FCC's attention; and the Parents Television Council periodically complains about network programs, particularly from Fox. The most recent high-profile FCC action was the TV station-record $325,000 forfeiture against CBS affiliate WDBJ in Roanoke, Va., for a brief video clip, albeit of a sexual organ, which the station said was inadvertently included in a news story about a former adult film star working for the rescue squad.
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