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FCC SEEKS COMMENT REGARDING POSSIBLE REVISION OR ELIMINATION OF RULES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
The FCC announced a plan for the review of rules adopted by the agency in calendar year 1996 which have, or might have, a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The purpose of the review is to determine whether such rules should be continued without change, or should be amended or rescinded, consistent with the stated objectives to minimize any significant economic impact of such rules upon a substantial number of small entities. The FCC will consider the following factors: a) the continued need for the rule; b) the nature of complaints or comments received concerning the rule from the public; c) the complexity of the rule; d) the extent to which the rule overlaps, duplicates, or conflicts with other Federal rules and, to the extent feasible, with State and local governmental rules; and e) the length of time since the rule has been evaluated or the degree to which technology, economic conditions, or other factors have changed in the area affected by the rule. The Commission is inviting public comment on these rules.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1863A1.doc

A NEW LEADER AT A VOICE LONG FAMILIAR TO LISTENERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Doreen Carvajal]
For generations of listeners, the Voice of America and its crackling international shortwave broadcasts are memories of huddling around radios, listening to accounts of the Allied landing on Normandy or the toppling of the Berlin Wall. Today, the network’s headlines are delivered on mobile phone news alerts, satellite television programs or Internet Webcasts. But the Voice of America, the 64-year-old international broadcasting service of the United States government, is still searching for relevance in an increasingly fierce market as rivals from commercial networks and public broadcasters compete for listeners. Last month, the service — which reaches about 115 million people weekly in 44 languages — received fresh leadership with the appointment of Danforth W. Austin as director, succeeding David S. Jackson, a former Time magazine foreign correspondent. Austin, 60, is, among other things, a former chief executive of Ottaway Newspapers, a community newspaper subsidiary of Dow Jones. He was named to the post by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a politically appointed group led by Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Austin, who has worked outside the United States on short-term reporting assignments but essentially served in corporate posts, said the notion of taking over the Voice of America was “not on my radar screen.” His plans for the network at this early stage are largely vague and general, beyond trying to make sure that it is responsive to its audiences.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/business/media/27voice.html
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INDECENCY COURT CHALLENGES BEGIN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The broadcast networks, with the exception of ABC, are taking aim at the Federal Communications Commission's stepped-up indecency/profanity-enforcement regime, beginning the court battle that could wind up with the Supreme Court getting another crack at the Commission's code. The ammunition was a series of opening briefs in networks' court challenges to four profanity rulings the FCC issued last March, though it has since rescinded those against CBS and ABC while upholding two against Fox's Billboard Music Awards. For its part, the FCC continued to paint networks and programmers as hedonists who curse like sailors. "By continuing to argue that it is okay to say the f-word and the s-word on television whenever it wants," the FCC said in response to the flood of court filings, "Hollywood is demonstrating once again how out of touch it is with the American people. We believe there should be some limits on what can be shown on television when children are likely to be watching."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6394596.html?display=News

PEACOCK PECKS AT INDECENCY REG UNDERPINNINGS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable 11/22, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
NBC has taken aim at the FCC's indecency enforcement regime and powers, arguing that the combination of the V-chip and ratings system is a more narrowly tailored means of giving parents control over content than the FCC's current daytime ban. When NBC broke with its years-long policy of not using the TV ratings descriptors, it was viewed as a major step toward a challenge of FCC indecency enforcement regulation, with the networks able to make the argument that since they were all using the ratings system and all new TV's had to have a v-chip, the FCC's policy was too broad. NBC also argues that FCC exceeded its authority by extending its profanity rules to cover fleeting expletives, or even non-fleeting ones that do not have a religious component -- i.e. blasphemy. That was one of several arguments the network made in an extensive brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. That court is hearing a challenge by the networks--except ABC--to the FCC's four profanity rulings of last March. NBC took a broad swipe at the underpinnings of the FCC's entire indecency enforcement regime while it was at it, saying that the Pacifica decision's foundation in the "special" nature of broadcasting had been eroded and that it is "far more restrictive than necessary" to protect children from content their parents don't want them to see or hear.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6394564.html?display=Breaking...

CBS SAYS FCC STACKS INDECENCY ENFORCEMENT DECK
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable 11/22, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
CBS has told a federal appeals court that the FCC's crackdown on broadcast profanity is unjustified, unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious, saying the FCC should return to a more First Amendment-friendly approach to indecency enforcement. The Commission initially ruled that CBS' The Early Show's broadcast of the word "bullshitter" violated FCC restrictions on indecency and profanity, part of a package of four profanity rulings. CBS asserts that the show was a news program, which has a higher threshold for indecency and profanity findings. CBS also argues that the FCC has for 30 years taken a cautious approach to indecency regulation to "avoid conflict with the First Amendment." Now, it says, it has abandoned its long-established policy of not cracking down on "fleeting, isolated or unintended expletives" that it argues was the "cornerstone" of that restrained policy. "The FCC's adoption of what amounts to a zero-tolerance approach is a direct repudiation of governing constitutional principles." CBS argues that the FCC's approach "ignores the significant technological and legal developments since the Supreme Court last considered the issue in 1978." It also argues that the commission has no evidence that the broadcasts it found indecent and profane were patently offensive when measured against a national community standard, its effort to unilaterally declare that to be the case notwithstanding.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6394506.html?display=Breaking...

HOLLYWOOD HAMMERS FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable 11/22, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Center for Creative Voices in Media, which represents a host of TV programmers including writers, producers and actors, told the court that the FCC has created an "unworkable, inconsistent, and confusing indecency regime, with vague and arbitrary standards." The Center called the FCC's indecency complaint process "wrought with abuse," and that its new approach to fleeting profanities was done without a reasoned explanation. It said the result is that TV content creators have been stifled with economic as well as creative consequences. Adapting one of the group's arguments against media consolidation, the center argued that the, "general public also faces the loss of its expectation to receive diverse expression."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6394369.html?display=Breaking...

ABC DROPS PROFANITY CHALLENGE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable 11/21, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
ABC has pulled out of the court challenge to four FCC profanity decisions pending the finality of the FCC's decision to rescind its indecency finding against ABC's NYPD Blue. In a letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Tuesday, ABC said that since the FCC's Nov. 6 order on remand from the court vacated the portions of its decision concerning NYPD Blue, it would not be filing a brief in the case or participate in oral argument.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6394045?display=Breaking+News

THE AIR IS FREE, AND SOMETIMES SO ARE THE PHONE CALLS THAT BORROW IT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
Several new devices allow users to make free or low-cost phone calls over the Internet. They are designed to take advantage of the hundreds of thousands of wireless access points deployed in cafes, parks, businesses and, most important, homes. The technology’s advocates say that as long as people are paying for high-speed Wi-Fi access in their homes, they should be able to use it as a conduit for inexpensive calls and an alternative to traditional phone service. But, in a twist that raises some tricky ethical and legal questions, the phones can also be used on the go, piggybacking on whatever access points happen to be open and available.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/technology/27wifi.html
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