Apparently there was a 2004 episode of Without a Trace that was so good, the FCC is proposing a $3.6 million fine on CBS -- more than twice what they fined Fox for Married by America. There were semi-nekkid teens, apparently. Here's a pretty good article about all the fines proposed yesterday:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002197348
Here's a very nice response to the whole travesty, Aaron Barnhart of The Kansas City Star/TV Barn:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/03/memo_to_kevin_m.html
Barnhart is right. We should be upset about the chilling effect caused by these ridiculous fines. It's especially worrisome when the FCC goes after affiliates in addition to the networks -- as they have in this case. I'm not OK with local station managers deciding what's obscene and what they can get away with showing to me. (It's bad enough that my local UPN station pre-empts Veronica Mars for local college basketball games.) These sorts of fines have got to be encouraging the sorts of evaluative decisions that we really don't want to have to deal with. -- Peter
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