Television Standards?: Indecency, Booze & Violence

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been bombarded with hundreds of thousands of complaints concerning the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Although the focal point of the complaints has been a public breast exposure, the complaints perhaps reflect the general outrage at a halftime show which has been described as a raunchy and disgraceful public display of indecency. The National Football League took a huge risk with its franchise presentation which has already reached over 100 million viewers. The FCC, however, is supposed to function as the guardian of what passes for a certain level of public decency and cultural acceptability. But has it been doing that or has it deteriorated to a little more than a back-water refuge for nepotism and industry fawning? This book presents media analyses of what the FCC is supposed to do – not what it does based on results.