Report urges FCC to limit TV violence
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Television networks are free to sprinkle their programs with shootings, slashings, torture and other gore because the government has no regulatory authority over violent programming. But a draft report being circulated at the Federal Communications Commission says Congress can change that, without violating the First Amendment.
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WASHINGTON -- A muchanticipated US intelligence report warned yesterday that the rising violence in Iraq could permanently tear the country apart and, in the worst case, create a state of anarchy with no legitimate authority that combines "extreme ethnosectarian violence with debilitating intragroup clashes."
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TV's over-zealous profanity police rebuked by court US television regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may not have the right to police American airwaves, a court has ruled. The ruling is a blow to a George W Bush-led clampdown on on-air swearing.â¦
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Senate Democrats pressed the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission this week to slap tighter controls on media ownership, public-interest broadcasting and television violence. But after a sometimes contentious two-hour hearing Thursday, some lawmakers expressed little hope of...
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a record total of $1.2 million in fines against 169 Fox Television Network affiliates for airing indecent material during
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Confusion over what officials can legally tell one another has limited their ability to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech, according to a federal report.
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Most U.S. households would face  higher television bills if they only paid for the channels they  wanted to watch, U.S. regulators told Congress in a report  released on Friday.
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Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps on Wednesday made a plea for more diversity on the TV airwaves, and stated his case against media deregulation with an appeal to the government agency to require that a certain number of primetime hours be set aside for programing from independent producers.
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Pakistan's army warns that no-one will be allowed to bring instability in the country as two TV stations have their broadcasts cut.
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Senate Democrats on  Thursday pressured the five FCC commissioners to set  programming requirements for broadcasters as part of the  industry's mandate to operate in the public interest.
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The Federal Communications Commission has confirmed it received complaints about the uncensored broadcast of Oscar-winning war movie &quot;Saving Private Ryan&quot; on ABC-affiliated stations last week.
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U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has proposed rejecting a request that cable companies be required to carry all the digital signals offered by a broadcast television station, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday.
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Lawmakers last night derailed legislation that would have substantially increased the amount the Federal Communications Commission can fine broadcasters for airing indecent material, giving media companies at least a temporary reprieve after months of scrutiny and public outrage.
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After a congressional report last month criticized the FCC and private industry for not working better together to ensure a smoother DTV transition, one commissioner responded by saying the executive branch should get involved.
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'Vertical integration' and cross-promotion in the TV landscape is prompting calls to limit media consolidation.
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(InfoWorld) - Police and fire organizations called on the U.S. Congress to give them more radio spectrum for communications interoperability than the 24MHz they're due to get in early 2009. Representatives of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Thursday told a U.S. Senate committee that they need an additional 30MHz of spectrum. The government is scheduled to auction spectrum to commercial users as U.S. television stations abandon the upper 700MHz spectrum band in February 2009, under a law passed last year. The additional spectrum would help public safety agencies deploy broadband communications systems that would fix the radio interoperability problems that plagued emergency workers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Charles Werner, fire chief for Charlottsville, Virginia. Congress must act before the spectrum is auctioned to private companies in the next year, he said. "I encourage Congress to take advantage of this very limited, one-time opportunity," Werner said. "We cannot suggest too strongly the urgent and identified need for broadband capability that public safety can use with assurance that it will work when needed, be available when needed, and is affordable." But some members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee questioned the plan to put the additional 30MHz of spectrum into a public safety broadband trust. The new spectrum plan, first advanced by Cyren Call Communications last April, could potentially cost the government billions of dollars in lost auction revenue, said Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican. The committee, in its DTV (digital television) transition bill, budgeted at least $10 billion to be raised by the spectrum auctions, with $1 billion going to fund emergency communications interoperability efforts. The Cyren Call plan is "impossible for us to do fiscally," Stevens said. Stevens' criticism echoed the High Tech DTV Coalition, a group of technology vendors, whichÂ on Tuesday called on the Senate to stick to the original spectrum plan. Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O'Brien said the company's plan calls for the broadband trust to raise $5 billion from private investors to pay for the 30MHz of spectrum. Private investors would pay for expensive public safety broadband networks instead of Congress or local governments, he said. Nearly all public safety organizations support the broadband trust concept, O'Brien added. "This is a crying out for help," he said. "We're sending men and women into dangerous situations every day knowing their devices are inferior." But the spectrum auctions could raise billions of dollars more than what the Cyren Call plan offers to pay, Stevens said. And Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA, a trade group representing wireless carriers, questioned whether the broadband trust would find enough investors to fund a broadband wireless rollout for public safety, especially in rural areas. Other senators suggested alternative approaches to the Cyren Call plan. Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, suggested that public safety agencies could better use the 25MHz of spectrum they already have. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, said public safety agencies in her state and elsewhere are finding success using existing spectrum with radio over IPÂ devices. This "boot-strap" approach using open standards and radio over IP could cost as little as $300 million across the U.S. as opposed to an average of about $1 billion per state using other equipment, said David Billstrom, chairman and CEO of public safety consulting group National Interop and a volunteer firefighter. Â
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Americans are being subjected to more sex, violence and profane language during the traditional, early-evening "family hour" of broadcast television viewing, a U.S. watchdog group said on Wednesday.