ABC Affiliates Defend NYPD Blue Buttocks Scene

ABC AFFILIATES DEFEND NYPD BLUE BUTTOCKS SCENE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The 50 ABC affiliates hit with indecency fines over a February 2003 episode of NYPD Blue filed an appeal with the Federal Communications Commission, telling it why it should rescind the fines. The stations argued that the bare female behind that prompted those fines -- which totaled about $1.4 million -- was a “simple depiction of nonsexual nudity,” and that mere nudity is not indecent either as a matter of law or as a matter of community standards. They also argued that the FCC action is “rife with procedural infirmities; is predicated on form complaints that do not satisfy the commission’s own policies; proscribes material outside the scope of the commission’s indecency-enforcement authority; misapplies the commission’s own multifactor test for patent offensiveness; is inconsistent with the commission’s governing precedent at the time of broadcast; and reaches a result that is plainly unconstitutional.”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6531320.html